OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

SALEM,June 15, 1835.--A walk down to the Juniper. The shore
of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent
winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with
it,--large marine vegetables, of an olive-color, with round,
slender, snake-like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly
two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of
fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible by their
fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea-weed there were
sometimes small pieces of painted wood, bark, and other driftage.
On the shore, with pebbles of granite, there were round or oval
pieces of brick, which the waves had rolled about till they
resembled a natural mineral. Huge stones tossed about, in every
variety of confusion, some shagged all over with sea-weed, others
only partly covered, others bare. The old ten-gun battery, at
the outer angle of the Juniper, very verdant, and besprinkled
with white-weed, clover, and buttercups. The juniper-trees are
very aged and decayed and moss-grown. The grass about the
hospital is rank, being trodden, probably, by nobody but myself.
There is a representation of a vessel under sail, cut with a
penknife, on the corner of the house.

Returning by the
almshouse, I stopped a good while to look at the pigs,--a great
herd,--who seemed to be just finishing their suppers. They
certainly are types of unmitigated sensuality,--some standing in
the trough, in the midst of their own and others'
victuals,--some thrusting their noses deep into the food,--some
rubbing their backs against a post,--some huddled together
between sleeping and waking, breathing hard,--all wallowing
about; a great boar swaggering round, and a big sow waddling
along with her huge paunch. Notwithstanding the unspeakable
defilement with which these strange sensualists spice all their
food, they seem to have a quick and delicate sense of smell.
What ridiculous-looking animals! Swift himself could not have
imagined anything nastier than what they practise by the mere
impulse of natural genius. Yet the Shakers keep their pigs very
clean, and with great advantage. The legion of devils in the
herd of swine,--what a scene it must have been!

Sunday evening,
going by the jail, the setting sun kindled up the windows most
cheerfully; as if there were a bright, comfortable light within
its darksome stone wall.

June
18th.--A walk in North Salem in the decline of yesterday
afternoon,--beautiful weather, bright, sunny, with a western or
northwestern wind just cool enough, and a slight superfluity of
heat. The verdure, both of trees and grass, is now in its prime,
the leaves elastic, all life. The grass-fields are plenteously
bestrewn with white-weed, large spaces looking as white as a
sheet of snow, at a distance, yet with an indescribably warmer
tinge than snow,--living white,intermixed with living green. The hills and
hollows beyond the Cold Spring copiously shaded, principally with
oaks of good growth, and some walnut-trees, with the rich sun
brightening in the midst of the open spaces, and mellowing and
fading into the shade,--and single trees, with their cool spot of
shade, in the waste of sun: quite a picture of beauty, gently
picturesque. The surface of the land is so varied, with woodland
mingled, that the eye cannot reach far away, except now and then
in vistas perhaps across the river, showing houses, or a church
and surrounding village, in Upper Beverly. In one of the sunny
bits of pasture, walled irregularly in with oak-shade, I saw a
gray mare feeding, and, as I drew near, a colt sprang up from
amid the grass,--a very small colt. He looked me in the face,
and I tried to startle him, so as to make him gallop; but he
stretched his long legs, one after another, walked quietly to his
mother, and began to suck,--just wetting his lips, not being very
hungry. Then he rubbed his head, alternately, with each hind
leg. He was a graceful little beast.

I bathed in the
cove, overhung with maples and walnuts, the water cool and
thrilling. At a distance it sparkled bright and blue in the
breeze and sun. There were jelly-fish swimming about, and
several left to melt away on the shore. On the shore, sprouting
amongst the sand and gravel, I found samphire, growing somewhat
like asparagus. It is an excellent salad at this season, salt,
yet with an herb-like vivacity, and very tender. I strolled
slowly through the pastures, watching my long shadow making
grave, fantastic gestures in the sun. It is a pretty sight to
see the sunshine brightening the entrance of a road which shortly
becomes deeply overshadowed by trees on both sides.At the Cold Spring, three little
girls, from six to nine, were seated on the stones in which the
fountain is set, and paddling in the water. It was a pretty
picture, and would have been prettier, if they had shown bare
little legs, instead of pantalets. Very large trees overhung
them, and the sun was so nearly gone down that a pleasant gloom
made the spot sombre, in contrast with these light and laughing
little figures. On perceiving me, they rose up, tittering among
themselves. It seemed that there was a sort of playful malice in
those who first saw me; for they allowed the other to keep on
paddling, without warning her of my approach. I passed along,
and heard them come chattering behind.

June
22d.--I rode to Boston in the afternoon with Mr. Proctor. It
was a coolish day, with clouds and intermitting sunshine, and a
pretty fresh breeze. We stopped about an hour at the Maverick
House, in the sprouting branch of the city, at East Boston,--a
stylish house, with doors painted in imitation of oak; a large
bar; bells ringing; the bar-keeper calls out, when a bell rings,
"Number --- "; then a waiter replies, "Number ---
answered"; and scampers up stairs. A ticket is given by the
hostler, on taking the horse and chaise, which is returned to the
bar-keeper when the chaise is wanted. The landlord was
fashionably dressed, with the whitest of linen, neatly plaited,
and as courteous as a Lord Chamberlain. Visitors from Boston
thronging the house,--some standing at the bar, watching the
process of preparing tumblers of punch,--others sitting at the
windows of different parlors,--some with faces flushed, puffing
cigars. The bill of fare for the day was stuck up beside thebar. Opposite this
principal hotel there was another, called "The
Mechanics," which seemed to be equally thronged. I suspect
that the company were about on a par in each; for at the Maverick
House, though well dressed, they seemed to be merely Sunday
gentlemen,--mostly young fellows,--clerks in dry-goods stores
being the aristocracy of them. One, very fashionable in
appearance, with a handsome cane, happened to stop by me and lift
up his foot, and I noticed that the sole of his boot (which was
exquisitely polished) was all worn out. I apprehend that some
such minor deficiencies might have been detected in the general
showiness of most of them. There were girls, too, but not pretty
ones, nor, on the whole, such good imitations of gentility as the
young men. There were as many people as are usually collected at
a muster, or on similar occasions, lounging about, without any
apparent enjoyment; but the observation of this may serve me to
make a sketch of the mode of spending the Sabbath by the majority
of unmarried, young, middling-class people, near a great town.
Most of the people had smart canes and bosom-pins.

Crossing the
ferry into Boston, we went to the City Tavern, where the bar-room
presented a Sabbath scene of repose,--stage-folk lounging in
chairs half asleep, smoking cigars, generally with clean linen
and other niceties of apparel, to mark the day. The doors and
blinds of an oyster and refreshment shop across the street were
closed, but I saw people enter it. There were two owls in a back
court, visible through a window of the bar-room,--speckled gray,
with dark-blue eyes,--the queerest-looking birds that exist,--so
solemn and wise,--dozing away the day, much like the rest of the
people, only that they looked wiserthan any others. Their hooked beaks looked
like hooked noses. A dull scene this. A stranger, here and
there, poring over a newspaper. Many of the stage-folk sitting
in chairs on the pavement, in front of the door.

We went to the
top of the hill which formed part of Gardiner Greene's
estate, and which is now in the process of levelling, and pretty
much taken away, except the highest point, and a narrow path to
ascend to it. It gives an admirable view of the city, being
almost as high as the steeples and the dome of the State House,
and overlooking the whole mass of brick buildings and slated
roofs, with glimpses of streets far below. It was really a pity
to take it down. I noticed the stump of a very large elm,
recently felled. No house in the city could have reared its roof
so high as the roots of that tree, if indeed the church-spires
did so.

On our drive home
we passed through Charlestown. Stages in abundance were passing
the road, burdened with passengers inside and out; also chaises
and barouches, horsemen and footmen. We are a community of
Sabbath-breakers!

August
31st.--A drive to Nahant yesterday afternoon. Stopped
at Rice's, and afterwards walked down to the steamboat wharf
to see the passengers land. It is strange how few good faces
there are in the world, comparatively to the ugly ones. Scarcely
a single comely one in all this collection. Then to the hotel.
Barouches at the doors, and gentlemen and ladies going to drive,
and gentlemen smoking round the piazza. The bar-keeper had one
of Benton's mint-drops for a bosom-brooch! It made a very
handsome one. I crossed the beach for home about sunset. The
tidewas so far down
as just to give me a passage on the hard sand, between the sea
and the loose gravel. The sea was calm and smooth, with only the
surf-waves whitening along the beach. Several ladies and
gentlemen on horseback were cantering and galloping before and
behind me.

A hint of a
story,--some incident which should bring on a general war; and
the chief actor in the incident to have something corresponding
to the mischief he had caused.

September 7th.--A drive to
Ipswich with B----. At the tavern was an old, fat, country
major, and another old fellow, laughing and playing off jokes on
each other,--one tying a ribbon upon the other's hat. One
had been a trumpeter to the major's troop. Walking about
town, we knocked, for a whim, at the door of a dark old house,
and inquired if Miss Hannah Lord lived there. A woman of about
thirty came to the door, with rather a confused smile, and a
disorder about the bosom of her dress, as if she had been
disturbed while nursing her child. She answered us with great
kindness.

Entering the
burial-ground, where some masons were building a tomb, we found a
good many old monuments, and several covered with slabs of red
freestone or slate, and with arms sculptured on the slab, or an
inlaid circle of slate. On one slate gravestone, of the Rev.
Nathl. Rogers, there was a portrait of that worthy, about a
third of the size of life, carved in relief, with his cloak,
band, and wig, in excellent preservation, all the buttons of his
waistcoat being cut with great minuteness,--the minister's
nose being ona level
with his cheeks. It was an upright gravestone. Returning home,
I held a colloquy with a young girl about the right road. She
had come out to feed a pig, and was a little suspicious that we
were making fun of her, yet answered us with a shy laugh and
good-nature,--the pig all the time squealing for his dinner.

Displayed along
the walls, and suspended from the pillars of the original
King's Chapel, were coats of arms of the king, the
successive governors, and other distinguished men. In the pulpit
there was an hour-glass on a large and elaborate brass stand.
The organ was surmounted by a gilt crown in the centre, supported
by a gilt mitre on each side. The governor's pew had Corinthian
pillars, and crimson damask tapestry. In 1727 it was lined with
china, probably tiles.

Saint Augustin,
at mass, charged all that were accursed to go out of the church.
"Then a dead body arose, and went out of the church into the
churchyard, with a white cloth on its head, and stood there till
mass was over. It was a former lord of the manor, whom a curate
had cursed because he refused to pay his tithes. A justice also
commanded the dead curate to arise, and gave him a rod; and the
dead lord, kneeling, received penance thereby." He then
ordered the lord to go again to his grave, which he did, and fell
immediately to ashes. Saint Augustin offered to pray for the
curate, that he might remain on earth to confirm men in their
belief; but the curate refused, because he was in the place of
rest.

A sketch to be
given of a modern reformer,--atype of the extreme doctrines on the subject
of slaves, cold water, and other such topics. He goes about the
streets haranguing most eloquently, and is on the point of making
many converts, when his labors are suddenly interrupted by the
appearance of the keeper of a mad-house, whence he has escaped.
Much may be made of this idea.

A change from a
gay young girl to an old woman; the melancholy events, the
effects of which have clustered around her character, and
gradually imbued it with their influence, till she becomes a
lover of sick-chambers, taking pleasure in receiving dying
breaths and in laying out the dead; also having her mind full of
funeral reminiscences, and possessing more acquaintances beneath
the burial turf than above it.

A well-concerted
train of events to be thrown into confusion by some misplaced
circumstance, unsuspected till the catastrophe, yet exerting its
influence from beginning to end.

On the common, at
dusk, after a salute from two field-pieces, the smoke lay long
and heavily on the ground, without much spreading beyond the
original space over which it had gushed from the guns. It was
about the height of a man. The evening clear, but with an
autumnal chill.

The world is so
sad and solemn, that things meant in jest are liable, by an
overpowering influence, to become dreadful earnest,--gayly
dressed fantasies turning to ghostly and black-clad images of
themselves.

A story, the hero
of which is to be represented as naturally capable of deep and
strong passion, and looking forward to the time when he shall
feel passionate love, which is to be the great event of his
existence. But it so chances that he never falls in love, and
although he gives up the expectation of so doing, and marries
calmly, yet it is somewhat sadly, with sentiments merely of
esteem for his bride. The lady might be one who had loved him
early in life, but whom then, in his expectation of passionate
love, he had scorned.

The scene of a
story or sketch to be laid within the light of a street-lantern;
the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the catastrophe to
be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam.

The peculiar
weariness and depression of spirits which is felt after a day
wasted in turning over a magazine or other light miscellany,
different from the state of the mind after severe study; because
there has been no excitement, no difficulties to be overcome, but
the spirits have evaporated insensibly.

To represent the
process by which sober truth gradually strips off all the
beautiful draperies with which imagination has enveloped a
beloved object, till from an angel she turns out to be a merely
ordinary woman. This to be done without caricature, perhaps with
a quiet humor interfused, but the prevailing impression to be a
sad one. The story might consist of the various alterations in
the feelings of the absent lover, caused by successive events
that display the true character of his mistress; and the
catastrophe should takeplace at their meeting, when he finds himself
equally disappointed in her person; or the whole spirit of the
thing may here be reproduced.

Last evening,
from the opposite shore of the North River, a view of the town
mirrored in the water, which was as smooth as glass, with no
perceptible tide or agitation, except a trifling swell and reflux
on the sand, although the shadow of the moon danced in it. The
picture of the town perfect in the water,--towers of churches,
houses, with here and there a light gleaming near the shore
above, and more faintly glimmering under water,--all perfect, but
somewhat more hazy and indistinct than the reality. There were
many clouds flitting about the sky; and the picture of each could
be traced in the water,--the ghost of what was itself
unsubstantial. The rattling of wheels heard long and far through
the town. Voices of people talking on the other side of the
river, the tones being so distinguishable in all their variations
that it seemed as if what was there said might be understood; but
it was not so.

Two persons might
be bitter enemies through life, and mutually cause the ruin of
one another, and of all that were dear to them. Finally, meeting
at the funeral of a grandchild, the offspring of a son and
daughter married without their consent,--and who, as well as the
child, had been the victims of their hatred,--they might discover
that the supposed ground of the quarrel was altogether a mistake,
and then be wofully reconciled.

Two persons, by
mutual agreement, to make theirwills in each other's favor, then to wait
impatiently for one another's death, and both to be informed
of the desired event at the same time. Both, in most joyous
sorrow, hasten to be present at the funeral, meet, and find
themselves both hoaxed.

The story of a
man, cold and hard-hearted, and acknowledging no brotherhood with
mankind. At his death they might try to dig him a grave, but, at
a little space beneath the ground, strike upon a rock, as if the
earth refused to receive the unnatural son into her bosom. Then
they would put him into an old sepulchre, where the coffins and
corpses were all turned to dust, and so he would be alone. Then
the body would petrify; and he having died in some characteristic
act and expression, he would seem, through endless ages of death,
to repel society as in life, and no one would be buried in that
tomb forever.

A person, even
before middle age, may become musty and faded among the people
with whom he has grown up from childhood; but, by migrating to a
new place, he appears fresh with the effect of youth, which may
be communicated from the impressions of others to his own
feelings.

In an old house,
a mysterious knocking might be heard on the wall, where had
formerly been a door-way, now bricked up.

It might be
stated, as the closing circumstance of a tale, that the body of
one of the characters had been petrified, and still existed in
that state.

A young man to
win the love of a girl, without any serious intentions, and to
find that in that love, which might have been the greatest
blessing of his life, he had conjured up a spirit of mischief
which pursued him throughout his whole career,--and this without
any revengeful purposes on the part of the deserted girl.

Two lovers, or
other persons, on the most private business, to appoint a meeting
in what they supposed to be a place of the utmost solitude, and
to find it thronged with people.

October
17th.--Some of the oaks are now a deep brown red; others
are changed to a light green, which, at a little distance,
especially in the sunshine, looks like the green of early spring.
In some trees, different masses of the foliage show each of these
hues. Some of the walnut-trees have a yet more delicate green.
Others are of a bright sunny yellow.

Mr.---- was
married to Miss ---- last Wednesday. Yesterday Mr. Brazer,
preaching on the comet, observed that not one, probably, of all
who heard him, would witness its reappearance. Mrs.---- shed
tears. Poor soul! she would be contented to dwell in earthly
love to all eternity!

Some treasure or
other thing to be buried, and a tree planted directly over the
spot, so as to embrace it with its roots.

A tree, tall and
venerable, to be said by tradition to have been the staff of some
famous man, who happened to thrust it into the ground, where it
took root.

A fellow without
money, having a hundred and seventy miles to go, fastened a chain
and padlock to his legs, and lay down to sleep in a field. He
was apprehended, and carried gratis to a jail in the town whither
he desired to go.

An old volume in
a large library,--every one to be afraid to unclasp and open it,
because it was said to be a book of magic.

A ghost seen by
moonlight; when the moon was out, it would shine and melt through
the airy substance of the ghost, as through a cloud.

Prideaux, Bishop
of Worcester, during the sway of the Parliament, was forced to
support himself and his family by selling his household goods. A
friend asked him, "How doth your lordship?" "Never
better in my life," said the Bishop, "only I have too
great a stomach; for I have eaten that little plate which the
sequestrators left me. I have eaten a great library of excellent
books. I have eaten a great deal of linen, much of my brass,
some of my pewter, and now I am come to eat iron; and what will
come next I know not."

In a dream to
wander to some place where may be heard the complaints of all the
miserable on earth.

Some common
quality or circumstance that should bring together people the
most unlike in all other respects, and make a brotherhood and
sisterhood of them,--the rich and the proud finding themselves in
the same category with the mean and the despised.

A person to
consider himself as the prime mover of certain remarkable events,
but to discover that his actions have not contributed in the
least thereto. Another person to be the cause, without
suspecting it.

October
25th.--A person or family long desires some particular
good. At last it comes in such profusion as to be the great pest
of their lives.

A man, perhaps
with a persuasion that he shall make his fortune by some singular
means, and with an eager longing so to do, while digging or
boring for water, to strike upon a salt-spring.

To have one event
operate in several places,--as, for example, if a man's head
were to be cut off in one town, men's heads to drop off in
several towns.

Follow out the
fantasy of a man taking his life by instalments, instead of at
one payment,--say ten years of life alternately with ten years of
suspended animation.

Sentiments in a
foreign language, which merely convey the sentiment without
retaining to the reader any graces of style or harmony of sound,
have somewhat of the charm of thoughts in one's own mind
that have not yet been put into words. No possible words thatwe might adapt to them
could realize the unshaped beauty that they appear to possess.
This is the reason that translations are never satisfactory,--and
less so, I should think, to one who cannot than to one who can
pronounce the language.

A person to be
writing a tale, and to find that it shapes itself against his
intentions; that the characters act otherwise than he thought;
that unforeseen events occur; and a catastrophe comes which he
strives in vain to avert. It might shadow forth his own
fate,--he having made himself one of the personages.

It is a singular
thing, that, at the distance, say, of five feet, the work of the
greatest dunce looks just as well as that of the greatest
genius,--that little space being all the distance between genius
and stupidity.

Mrs. Sigourney
says, after Coleridge, that "poetry has been its own
exceeding great reward." For the writing, perhaps; but would
it be so for the reading?

Four precepts: To
break off customs; to shake off spirits ill-disposed; to meditate
on youth; to do nothing against one's genius.

Salem,
August 31, 1836.--A walk, yesterday, down to the shore, near
the hospital. Standing on the old grassy battery, that forms a
semicircle, and looking seaward. The sun not a great way above
the horizon, yet so far as to give a very golden brightness, when
it shone out. Clouds in the vicinity of the sun, and nearly all
the rest of the sky covered with cloudsin masses, not a gray uniformity of cloud. A
fresh breeze blowing from land seaward. If it had been blowing
from the sea, it would have raised it in heavy billows, and
caused it to dash high against the rocks. But now its surface
was not all commoved with billows; there was only roughness
enough to take off the gleam, and give it the aspect of iron
after cooling. The clouds above added to the black appearance.
A few sea-birds were flitting over the water, only visible at
moments, when they turned their white bosoms towards me,--as if
they were then first created. The sunshine had a singular
effect. The clouds would interpose in such a manner that some
objects were shaded from it, while others were strongly
illuminated. Some of the islands lay in the shade, dark and
gloomy, while others were bright and favored spots. The white
light-house was sometimes very cheerfully marked. There was a
schooner about a mile from the shore, at anchor, laden apparently
with lumber. The sea all about her had the black, iron aspect
which I have described; but the vessel herself was alight. Hull,
masts, and spars were all gilded, and the rigging was made of
golden threads. A small white streak of foam breaking around the
bows, which ware towards the wind. The shadowiness of the clouds
overhead made the effect of the sunlight strange, where it
fell.

September.--The elm-trees have golden
branches intermingled with their green already, and so they had
on the first of the month.

To picture the
predicament of worldly people, if admitted to paradise.

As the
architecture of a country always follows the earliest structures,
American architecture should be a refinement of the log-house.
The Egyptian is so of the cavern and mound; the Chinese, of the
tent; the Gothic, of overarching trees; the Greek, of a
cabin.

In old times it
must have been much less customary than now to drink pure water.
Walker emphatically mentions, among the sufferings of a
clergyman's wife and family in the Great Rebellion, that
they were forced to drink water, with crab-apples stamped in it
to relish it.

Mr. Kirby, author
of a work on the History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals,
questions whether there may not be an abyss of waters within the
globe, communicating with the ocean, and whether the huge animals
of the Saurian tribe--great reptiles, supposed to be exclusively
antediluvian, and now extinct--may not be inhabitants of it. He
quotes a passage from Revelation, where the creatures under the
earth are spoken of as distinct from those of the sea, and speaks
of a Saurian fossil that has been found deep in the subterranean
regions. He thinks, or suggests, that these may be the dragons
of Scripture.

The elephant is
not particularly sagacious in the wild state, but becomes so when
tamed. The fox directly the contrary, and likewise the wolf.

A modern Jewish
adage,--"Let a man clothe himself beneath his ability, his
children according to his ability, and his wife above his
ability."

It is said of the
eagle, that, in however long a flight, he is never seen to clap
his wings to his sides. He seems to govern his movements by the
inclination of his wings and tail to the wind, as a ship is
propelled by the action of the wind on her sails.

In old
country-houses in England, instead of glass for windows, they
used wicker, or fine strips of oak disposed checkerwise. Horn
was also used. The windows of princes and great noblemen were of
crystal; those of Studley Castle, Holinshed says, of beryl.
There were seldom chimneys; and they cooked their meats by a fire
made against an iron back in the great hall. Houses, often of
gentry, were built of a heavy timber frame, filled up with lath
and plaster. People slept on rough mats or straw pallets, with a
round log for a pillow; seldom better beds than a mattress, with
a sack of chaff for a pillow.

October
25th.--A walk yesterday through Dark Lane, and home
through the village of Danvers. Landscape now wholly autumnal.
Saw an elderly man laden with two dry, yellow, rustling bundles
of Indian corn-stalks,--a good personification of Autumn.
Another man hoeing up potatoes. Rows of white cabbages lay
ripening. Fields of dry Indian corn. The grass has still
considerable greenness. Wild rose-bushes devoid of leaves, with
their deep, bright red seed-vessels. Meeting-house in Danvers
seen at a distance, with the sun shining through the windows of
its belfry.Barberry-bushes,--the leaves now of a brown
red, still juicy and healthy; very few berries remaining, mostly
frost-bitten and wilted. All among the yet green grass, dry
stalks of weeds. The down of thistles occasionally seen flying
through the sunny air.

Those who are very difficult in choosing wives seem as if they
would take none of Nature's ready-made works, but want a
woman manufactured particularly to their order.

A council of the
passengers in a street: called by somebody to decide upon some
points important to him.

Every individual
has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some
respects, whether he chooses to be so or not.

A Thanksgiving
dinner. All the miserable on earth are to be invited,--as the
drunkard, the bereaved parent, the ruined merchant, the
broken-hearted lover, the poor widow, the old man and woman who
have outlived their generation, the disappointed author, the
wounded, sick, and broken soldier, the diseased person, the
infidel, the man with an evil conscience, little orphan children
or children of neglectful parents, shall be admitted to the
table, and many others. The giver of the feast goes out to
deliver his invitations. Some of the guests he meets in the
streets, some he knocks for at the doors of their houses. The
descriptionmust be
rapid. But who must be the giver of the feast, and what his
claims to preside? A man who has never found out what he is fit
for, who has unsettled aims or objects in life, and whose mind
gnaws him, making him the sufferer of many kinds of misery. He
should meet some pious, old, sorrowful person, with more outward
calamities than any other, and invite him, with a reflection that
piety would make all that miserable company truly thankful.

Merry,
"in merry England," does not mean mirthful; but is
corrupted from an old Teutonic word signifying famous or
renowned.

In an old London
newspaper, 1678, there is an advertisement, among other goods at
auction, of a black girl, about fifteen years old, to be
sold.

We sometimes
congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled
dream: it may be so the moment after death.

The race of
mankind to be swept away, leaving all their cities and works.
Then another human pair to be placed in the world, with native
intelligence like Adam and Eve, but knowing nothing of their
predecessors or of their own nature and destiny. They, perhaps,
to be described as working out this knowledge by their sympathy
with what they saw, and by their own feelings.

Memorials of the
family of Hawthorne in the church of the village of Dundry,
Somersetshire, England. The church is ancient and small, and has
a prodigiouslyhigh
tower of more modern date, being erected in the time of Edward
IV. It serves as a landmark for an amazing extent of country.

A singular fact,
that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome
of all brutes.

A snake taken
into a man's stomach and nourished there from fifteen years
to thirty-five, tormenting him most horribly. A type of envy or
some other evil passion.

A sketch
illustrating the imperfect compensations which time makes for its
devastations on the person,--giving a wreath of laurel while it
causes baldness, honors for infirmities, wealth for a broken
constitution,--and at last, when a man has everything that seems
desirable, death seizes him. To contrast the man who has thus
reached the summit of ambition with the ambitious youth.

Walking along the
track of the railroad, I observed a place where the workmen had
bored a hole through the solid rock, in order to blast it; but,
striking a spring of water beneath the rock, it gushed up through
the hole. It looked as if the water were contained within the
rock.

A Fancy Ball, in
which the prominent American writers should appear, dressed in
character.

A new
classification of society to be instituted.Instead of rich and poor, high and
low, they are to be classed,--First, by their sorrows: for
instance, whenever there are any, whether in fair mansion or
hovel, who are mourning the loss of relations and friends, and
who wear black, whether the cloth be coarse or superfine, they
are to make one class. Secondly, all who have the same maladies,
whether they lie under damask canopies or on straw pallets or in
the wards of hospitals, they are to form one class. Thirdly, all
who are guilty of the same sins, whether the world knows them or
not; whether they languish in prison, looking forward to the
gallows, or walk honored among men, they also form a class. Then
proceed to generalize and classify the whole world together, as
none can claim utter exemption from either sorrow, sin, or
disease; and if they could, yet Death, like a great parent, comes
and sweeps them all through one darksome portal,--all his
children.

Fortune to come
like a pedlar with his goods,--as wreaths of laurel, diamonds,
crowns; selling them, but asking for them the sacrifice of
health, of integrity, perhaps of life in the battle-field, and of
the real pleasures of existence. Who would buy, if the price
were to be paid down?

The dying
exclamation of the Emperor Augustus, "Has it not been well
acted?" An essay on the misery of being always under a mask.
A veil may be needful, but never a mask. Instances of people who
wear masks in all classes of society, and never take them off
even in the most familiar moments, though sometimes they may
chance to slip aside.

The various
guises under which Ruin makes his approaches to his victims: to
the merchant, in the guise of a merchant offering speculations;
to the young heir, a jolly companion; to the maiden, a sighing,
sentimentalist lover.

What were the
contents of the burden of Christian in the "Pilgrim's
Progress"? He must have been taken for a pedlar travelling
with his pack.

To think, as the
sun goes down, what events have happened in the course of the
day,--events of ordinary occurrence: as, the clocks have struck,
the dead have been buried.

Curious to
imagine what murmurings and discontent would be excited, if any
of the great so-called calamities of human beings were to be
abolished,--as, for instance, death.

Trifles to one
are matters of life and death to another. As, for instance, a
farmer desires a brisk breeze to winnow his grain; and mariners,
to blow them out of the reach of pirates.

A recluse, like
myself, or a prisoner, to measure time by the progress of
sunshine through his chamber.

Would it not be
wiser for people to rejoice at all that they now sorrow for, and
vice versa? To put on bridal garments at funerals,
and mourning at weddings? For their friends to condole with them
when they attained riches and honor, as only so much care
added?

If in a village
it were a custom to hang a funeral garland or other token of
death on a house where some one had died, and there to let it
remain till a death occurred elsewhere, and then to hang that
same garland over the other house, it would have, methinks, a
strong effect.

Fame! Some very
humble persons in a town may be said to possess it,--as, the
penny-post, the town-crier, the constable,--and they are known to
everybody; while many richer, more intellectual, worthier persons
are unknown by the majority of their fellow-citizens. Something
analogous in the world at large.

The ideas of
people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of the
houses. All their interests extend over the earth's surface
in a layer of that thickness. The meeting-house steeple reaches
out of their sphere.

Nobody will use
other people's experience, nor have any of his own till it
is too late to use it.

Two lovers to
plan the building of a pleasure-house on a certain spot of
ground, but various seeming accidents prevent it. Once they find
a group of miserable children there; once it is the scene where
crime is plotted; at last the dead body of one of the lovers or
of a dear friend is found there; and, instead of a
pleasure-house, they build a marble tomb. The moral,--that there
is no place on earth fit for the site of apleasure-house, because there is no
spot that may not have been saddened by human grief, stained by
crime, or hallowed by death. It might be three friends who plan
it, instead of two lovers; and the dearest one dies.

Comfort for
childless people. A married couple with ten children have been
the means of bringing about ten funerals.

A blind man on a
dark night carried a torch, in order that people might see him,
and not run against him, and direct him how to avoid dangers.

To picture a
child's (one of four or five years old) reminiscences at
sunset of a long summer s day,--his first awakening, his studies,
his sports, his little fits of passion, perhaps a whipping,
etc.

To picture a
virtuous family, the different members examples of virtuous
dispositions in their way; then introduce a vicious person, and
trace out the relations that arise between him and them, and the
manner in which all are affected.

A man to flatter
himself with the idea that he would not be guilty of some certain
wickedness,--as, for instance, to yield to the personal
temptations of the Devil,--yet to find, ultimately, that he was
at that very time committing that same wickedness.

What would a man
do, if he were compelled to livealways in the sultry heat of society, and
could never bathe himself in cool solitude?

A girl's
lover to be slain and buried in her flower-garden, and the earth
levelled over him. That particular spot, which she happens to
plant with some peculiar variety of flowers, produces them of
admirable splendor, beauty, and perfume; and she delights, with
an indescribable impulse, to wear them in her bosom, and scent
her chamber with them. Thus the classic fantasy would be
realized, of dead people transformed to flowers.

Objects seen by a
magic-lantern reversed. A street, or other location, might be
presented, where there would be opportunity to bring forward all
objects of worldly interest, and thus much pleasant satire might
be the result.

The Abyssinians,
after dressing their hair, sleep with their heads in a forked
stick, in order not to discompose it.

At the battle of
Edge Hill, October 23, 1642, Captain John Smith, a soldier of
note, Captain Lieutenant to Lord James Stuart's horse, with
only a groom, attacked a Parliament officer, three cuirassiers,
and three arquebusiers, and rescued the royal standard, which
they had taken and were guarding. Was this the Virginian
Smith?

Stephen Gowans
supposed that the bodies of Adam and Eve were clothed in robes of
light, which vanished after their sin.

Lord Chancellor
Clare, towards the close of his life, went to a village church,
where he might not be known, to partake of the Sacrament.

A missionary to
the heathen in a great city, to describe his labors in the manner
of a foreign mission.

In the tenth
century, mechanism of organs so clumsy, that one in Westminster
Abbey, with four hundred pipes, required twenty-six bellows and
seventy stout men. First organ ever known in Europe received by
King Pepin, from the Emperor Constantine, in 757. Water boiling
was kept in a reservoir under the pipes; and, the keys being
struck, the valves opened, and steam rushed through with noise.
The secret of working them thus is now lost. Then came bellows
organs, first used by Louis le Débonnaire.

After the siege
of Antwerp, the children played marbles in the streets with grape
and cannon shot.

A shell, in
falling, buries itself in the earth, and, when it explodes, a
large pit is made by the earth being blown about in all
directions,--large enough, sometimes, to hold three or four
cart-loads of earth. The holes are circular.

A French
artillery-man being buried in his military cloak on the ramparts,
a shell exploded, and unburied him.

In the
Netherlands, to form hedges, young trees are interwoven into a
sort of lattice-work; and, in time, they grow together at the
point of junction, so that the fence is all of one piece.

To show the
effect of gratified revenge. As an instance, merely, suppose a
woman sues her lover for breach of promise, and gets the money by
instalments, through a long series of years. At last, when the
miserable victim were utterly trodden down, the triumpher would
have become a very devil of evil passions,--they having overgrown
his whole nature; so that a far greater evil would have come upon
himself than on his victim.

Anciently, when
long-buried bodies were found undecayed in the grave, a species
of sanctity was attributed to them.

Some chimneys of
ancient halls used to be swept by having a culverin fired up
them.

At Leith, in
1711, a glass bottle was blown of the capacity of two English
bushels.

The buff and blue
of the Union were adopted by Fox and the Whig party in England.
The Prince of Wales wore them.

In 1621, a Mr.
Copinger left a certain charity, an almhouse, of which four poor
persons were to partake, after the death of his eldest son and
his wife. It was a tenement and yard. The parson, headboroughs,
and his five other sons were to appoint the persons. At the time
specified, however, all but one of his sons were dead; and he was
in such poor circumstances that he obtained the benefit of the
charity for himself, as one of the four.

A town clerk
arranges the publishments that are given in, according to his own
judgment.

To make a story
from Robert Raikes seeing dirty children at play, in the streets
of London, and inquiring of a woman about them. She tells him
that on Sundays, when they were not employed, they were a great
deal worse, making the streets like hell; playing at church, etc.
He was therefore induced to employ women at a shilling to teach
them on Sundays, and thus Sunday-schools were established.

To represent the
different departments of the United States government by village
functionaries. The War Department by watchmen, the law by
constables, the merchants by a variety store, etc.

At the accession
of Bloody Mary, a man, coming into a house, sounded three times
with his mouth, as with a trumpet, and then made proclamation to
the family. A bonfire was built, and little children were made
to carry wood to it, that they might remember the circumstance in
old age. Meat and drink were provided at the bonfires.

To describe a
boyish combat with snowballs, and the victorious leader to have a
statue of snow erected to him. A satire on ambition and fame to
be made out of this idea. It might be a child's story.

Our body to be
possessed by two different spirits; so that half of the visage
shall express one mood, and the other half another.

An old English
sea-captain desires to have a fast-sailing ship, to keep a good
table, and to sail between the tropics without making land.

A rich man left
by will his mansion and estate to a poor couple. They remove
into it, and find there a darksome servant, whom they are
forbidden by will to turn away. He becomes a torment to them;
and, in the finale, he turns out to be the former master of the
estate.

Two persons to be
expecting some occurrence, and watching for the two principal
actors in it, and to find that the occurrence is even then
passing, and that they themselves are the two actors.

There is evil in
every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the
whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity. To
imagine such circumstances. A woman, tempted to be false to her
husband, apparently through mere whim,--or a young man to feel an
instinctive thirst for blood, and to commit murder. This
appetite may be traced in the popularity of criminal trials. The
appetite might be observed first in a child, and then traced
upwards, manifesting itself in crimes suited to every stage of
life.

The good deeds in
an evil life,--the generous, noble, and excellent actions done by
people habitually wicked,--to ask what is to become of them.

A satirical
article might be made out of the idea of an imaginary museum,
containing such articlesas Aaron's rod, the petticoat of General
Hawion, the pistol with which Benton shot Jackson,--and then a
diorama, consisting of political or other scenes, or done in
wax-work. The idea to be wrought out and extended. Perhaps it
might be the museum of a deceased old man.

An article might
be made respecting various kinds of ruin,--ruin as regards
property,--ruin of health,--ruin of habits, as drunkenness and
all kinds of debauchery,--ruin of character, while prosperous in
other respects,--ruin of the soul. Ruin, perhaps, might be
personified as a demon, seizing its victims by various holds.

An article on
fire, on smoke. Diseases of the mind and soul,--even more common
than bodily diseases.

Tarleton, of the
Revolution, is said to have been one of the two handsomest men in
Europe,--the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., being the
other. Some authorities, however, have represented him as
ungainly in person and rough in manners. Tarleton was originally
bred for the law, but quitted law for the army early in life. He
was son to a mayor of Liverpool, born in 1754, of ancient family.
He wrote his own memoirs after returning from America.
Afterwards in Parliament. Never afterwards distinguished in
arms. Created baronet in 1818, and died childless in 1833.
Thought he was not sufficiently honored among more modern heroes.
Lost part of his right hand in battle of Guilford Court House. A
man of pleasure in England.

It would be a
good idea for a painter to paint a picture of a great actor,
representing him in several different characters of one
scene,--Iago and Othello, for instance.

Maine,July 5, 1837.--Here I am, settled since night before
last with B----, and living very singularly. He leads a
bachelor's life in his paternal mansion, only a small part
of which is occupied by a family who serve him. He provides his
own breakfast and supper, and occasionally his dinner; though
this is oftener, I believe, taken at a hotel, or an eating-house,
or with some of his relatives. I am his guest, and my presence
makes no alteration in his way of life. Our fare, thus far, has
consisted of bread, butter, and cheese, crackers, herrings,
boiled eggs, coffee, milk, and claret wine. He has another
inmate, in the person of a queer little Frenchman, who has his
breakfast, tea, and lodging here, and finds his dinner elsewhere.
Monsieur S---- does not appear to be more than twenty-one years
old,--a diminutive figure, with eyes askew, and otherwise of an
ungainly physiognomy; he is ill-dressed also, in a coarse blue
coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots; altogether
with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined,
though with something of the monkey aspect inseparable from a
little Frenchman. He is, nevertheless, an intelligent and
well-informed man, apparently of extensive reading in his own
language,--a philosopher, B---- tells me, and an infidel. His
insignificant personal appearance stands in the way of his
success, and prevents him from receiving the respect which is
really due to his talents and acquirements, wherefore he is
bitterly dissatisfied with the country and itsinhabitants, and often expresses
his feelings to B---- (who has gained his confidence to a certain
degree) in very strong terms.

Thus here are
three characters, each with something out of the common way,
living together somewhat like monks. B----, our host, combines
more high and admirable qualities, of that sort which make up a
gentleman, than any other that I have met with. Polished, yet
natural, frank, open, and straightforward, yet with a delicate
feeling for the sensitiveness of his companions; of excellent
temper and warm heart; well acquainted with the world, with a
keen faculty of observation, which he has had many opportunities
of exercising, and never varying from a code of honor and
principle which is really nice and rigid in its way. There is a
sort of philosophy developing itself in him which will not
impossibly cause him to settle down in this or some other equally
singular course of life. He seems almost to have made up his
mind never to be married, which I wonder at; for he has strong
affections, and is fond both of women and children.

The little
Frenchman impresses me very strongly, too,--so lonely as he is
here, struggling against the world, with bitter feelings in his
breast, and yet talking with the vivacity and gayety of his
nation; making this his home from darkness to daylight, and
enjoying here what little domestic comfort and confidence there
is for him; and then going about the live-long day, teaching
French to blockheads who sneer at him, and returning at about ten
o'clock in the evening (for I was wrong in saying he supped
here,--he eats no supper) to his solitary room and bed. Before
retiring, he goes to B----'s bedside, and, if he finds him
awake, stands talking French, expressing his dislike ofthe
Americans,--"Je hais, je hais les
Yankees!"--thus giving vent to the stifled bitterness
of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at
sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his
chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure
for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful
and vivacious enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again,
singing French chansons as he goes down the
gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody to sympathize with him
but B----, and thus a singular connection is established between
two utterly different characters.

Then here is
myself, who am likewise a queer character in my way, and have
come to spend a week or two with my friend of half a
lifetime,--the longest space, probably, that we are ever destined
to spend together; for Fate seems preparing changes for both of
us. My circumstances, at least, cannot long continue as they are
and have been; and B----, too, stands between high prosperity and
utter ruin.

I think I should
soon become strongly attached to our way of life, so independent
and untroubled by the forms and restrictions of society. The
house is very pleasantly situated,--half a mile distant from
where the town begins to be thickly settled, and on a swell of
land, with the road running at a distance of fifty yards, and a
grassy tract and a gravel-walk between. Beyond the road rolls
the Kennebec, here two or three hundred yards wide. Putting my
head out of the window, I can see it flowing steadily along
straightway between wooded banks; but arriving nearly opposite
the house, there is a large and level sand island in the middle
of the stream; and just below the island the current is further
interrupted by the works of themill-dam, which is perhaps half finished, yet
still in so rude a state that it looks as much like the ruins of
a dam destroyed by the spring freshets as like the foundations of
a dam yet to be. Irishmen and Canadians toil at work on it, and
the echoes of their hammering and of the voices come across the
river and up to this window. Then there is a sound of the wind
among the trees round the house; and, when that is silent, the
calm, full, distant voice of the river becomes audible. Looking
downward thither, I see the rush of the current, and mark the
different eddies, with here and there white specks or streaks of
foam; and often a log comes floating on, glistening in the sun,
as it rolls over among the eddies, having voyaged, for aught I
know, hundreds of miles from the wild upper sources of the river,
passing down, down, between lines of forest, and sometimes a
rough clearing, till here it floats by cultivated banks, and will
soon pass by the village. Sometimes a long raft of boards comes
along, requiring the nicest skill in navigating it through the
narrow passage left by the mill-dam. Chaises and wagons
occasionally go over the road, the riders all giving a passing
glance at the dam, or perhaps alighting to examine it more fully,
and at last departing with ominous shakes of the head as to the
result of the enterprise. My position is so far retired from the
river and mill-dam, that, though the latter is really rather a
scene, yet a sort of quiet seems to be diffused over the whole.
Two or three times a day this quiet is broken by the sudden
thunder from a quarry, where the workmen are blasting rocks; and
a peal of thunder sounds strangely in such a green, sunny, and
quiet landscape, with the blue sky brightening the river.

I have not seen
much of the people. There havebeen, however, several incidents which amused
me, though scarcely worth telling. A passionate tavern-keeper,
quick as a flash of gunpowder, a nervous man, and showing in his
demeanor, it seems, a consciousness of his infirmity of temper.
I was a witness of a scuffle of his with a drunken guest. The
tavern-keeper, after they were separated, raved like a madman,
and in a tone of voice having a drolly pathetic or lamentable
sound mingled with its rage, as if he were lifting up his voice
to weep. Then he jumped into a chaise which was standing by,
whipped up the horse, and drove off rapidly, as if to give his
fury vent in that way.

On the morning of
the Fourth of July, two printer's apprentice-lads, nearly
grown, dressed in jackets and very tight pantaloons of check,
tight as their skins, so that they looked like harlequins or
circus-clowns, yet appeared to think themselves in perfect
propriety, with a very calm and quiet assurance of the admiration
of the town. A common fellow, a carpenter, who, on the strength
of political partisanship, asked B----'s assistance in
cutting out great letters from play-bills in order to print
"Martin Van Buren Forever" on a flag; but B----
refused. B---- seems to be considerably of a favorite with the
lower orders, especially with the Irishmen and French
Canadians,--the latter accosting him in the street, and asking
his assistance as an interpreter in making their bargains for
work.

I meant to dine
at the hotel with B---- to-day; but having returned to the house,
leaving him to do some business in the village, I found myself
unwilling to move when the dinner-hour approached, and therefore
dined very well on bread, cheese, and eggs. Nothin of much interest takes
place. We live very comfortably in our bachelor establishment on
a cold shoulder of mutton, with ham and smoked beef and boiled
eggs; and as to drinkables, we had both claret and brown sherry
on the dinner-table to-day. Last evening we had a long literary
and philosophical conversation with Monsieur S----. He is rather
remarkably well-informed for a man of his age, and seems to have
very just notions on ethics, etc., though damnably perverted as
to religion. It is strange to hear philosophy of any sort from
such a boyish figure. "We philosophers," he is fond of
saying, to distinguish himself and his brethren from the
Christians. One of his oddities is, that, while steadfastly
maintaining an opinion that he is a very small and slow eater,
and that we, in common with other Yankees, eat immensely and
fast, he actually eats both faster and longer than we do, and
devours, as B---- avers, more victuals than both of us
together.

Saturday,July
8th.--Yesterday afternoon, a stroll with B---- up a
large brook, he fishing for trout, and I looking on. The brook
runs through a valley, on one side bordered by a high and
precipitous bank; on the other there is an interval, and then the
bank rises upward and upward into a high hill, with gorges and
ravines separating one summit from another, and here and there
are bare places, where the rain-streams have washed away the
grass. The brook is bestrewn with stones, some bare, some
partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as--once at least--to
occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. Amongst these
the stream brawls, only that this word does not express its
good-natured voice, and "murmur" is tooquiet. It sings along, sometimes
smooth, with the pebbles visible beneath, sometimes rushing dark
and swift, eddying and whitening past some rock, or underneath
the hither or the farther bank; and at these places B---- cast
his line, and sometimes drew out a trout, small, not more than
five or six inches long. The farther we went up the brook, the
wilder it grew. The opposite bank was covered with pines and
hemlocks, ascending high upwards, black and solemn. One knew
that there must be almost a precipice behind, yet we could not
see it. At the foot you could spy, a little way within the
darksome shade, the roots and branches of the trees; but soon all
sight was obstructed amidst the trunks. On the hither side, at
first the bank was bare, then fringed with alder-bushes, bending
and dipping into the stream, which, farther on, flowed through
the midst of a forest of maple, beech, and other trees, its
course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded. For a
considerable distance there was a causeway, built long ago of
logs, to drag lumber upon; it was now decayed and rotten, a red
decay, sometimes sunken down in the midst, here and there a
knotty trunk stretching across, apparently sound. The sun being
now low towards the west, a pleasant gloom and brightness were
diffused through the forest, spots of brightness scattered upon
the branches, or thrown down in gold upon the last year's
leaves among the trees. At last we came to where a dam had been
built across the many years ago, and was now gone to ruin, so as
to make the spot look more solitary and wilder than if man had
never left vestiges of his toil there. It was a framework of
logs, with a covering of plank sufficient to obstruct the onward
flow of the brook; but it found its way pastthe side, and came foaming and
struggling along among scattered rocks. Above the dam there was
a broad and deep pool, one side of which was bordered by a
precipitous wall of rocks, as smooth as if hewn out and squared,
and piled one upon another, above which rose the forest. On the
other side there was still a gently shelving bank, and the shore
was covered with tall trees, among which I particularly remarked
a stately pine, wholly devoid of bark, rising white in aged and
majestic ruin, thrusting out its barkless arms. It must have
stood there in death many years, its own ghost. Above the dam
the brook flowed through the forest, a glistening and babbling
water-path, illuminated by the sun, which sent its rays almost
straight along its course. It was as lovely and wild and
peaceful as it could possibly have been a hundred years ago; and
the traces of labors of men long departed added a deeper peace to
it. I bathed in the pool, and then pursued my way down beside
the brook, growing dark with a pleasant gloom, as the sun sank
and the water became more shadowy. B---- says that there was
formerly a tradition that the Indians used to go up this brook,
and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead,
which they sold at the trading-stations in Augusta; whence there
has always been an idea that there is a lead-mine hereabouts.
Great toadstools were under the trees, and some small ones as
yellow and almost the size of a half-broiled yolk of an egg.
Strawberries were scattered along the brookside.

Dined at the
hotel or Mansion House to-day. Men were playing checkers in the
parlor. The Marshal of Maine, a corpulent, jolly fellow, famed
for humor. A passenger left by the stage, hiring an express
onward. A bottle of champagne was quaffed at the bar.

July
9th.--Went with B---- to pay a visit to the shanties of
the Irish and Canadians. He says that they sell and exchange
these small houses among themselves continually. They may be
built in three or four days, and are valued at four or five
dollars. When the turf that is piled against the walls of some
of them becomes covered with grass, it makes quite a picturesque
object. It was almost dusk--just candle-lighting time--when we
visited them. A young Frenchwoman, with a baby in her arms, came
to the door of one of them, smiling, and looking pretty and
happy. Her husband, a dark, black-haired, lively little fellow,
caressed the child, laughing and singing to it; and there was a
red-bearded Irishman, who likewise fondled the little brat. Then
we could hear them within the hut, gabbling merrily, and could
see them moving about briskly in the candlelight, through the
window and open door. An old Irishwoman sat in the door of
another hut, under the influence of an extra dose of rum,--she
being an old lady of somewhat dissipated habits. She called to
B----, and began to talk to him about her resolution not to give
up her house: for it is his design to get her out of it. She is
a true virago, and, though somewhat restrained by respect for
him, she evinced a sturdy design to remain here through the
winter, or at least for a considerable time longer. He
persisting, she took her stand in the doorway of the hut, and
stretched out her fist in a very Amazonian attitude.
"Nobody," quoth she, "shall drive me out of this
house, till my praties are out of the ground." Then would
she wheedle and laugh and blarney, beginning in a rage, and
ending as if she had been in jest. Meanwhile her husband stood
by very quiet, occasionally trying to still her; but itis to be presumed,
that, after our departure, they came to blows, it being a custom
with the Irish husbands and wives to settle their disputes with
blows; and it is said the woman often proves the better man. The
different families also have battles, and occasionally the Irish
fight with the Canadians. The latter, however, are much the more
peaceable, never quarrelling among themselves, and seldom with
their neighbors. They are frugal, and often go back to Canada
with considerable sums of money. B---- has gained much influence
both with the Irish and the French,--with the latter, by dint of
speaking to them in their own language. He is the umpire in
their disputes, and their adviser, and they look up to him as a
protector and patron-friend. I have been struck to see with what
careful integrity and wisdom he manages matters among them,
hitherto having known him only as a free and gay young man. He
appears perfectly to understand their general character, of which
he gives no very flattering description. In these huts, less
than twenty feet square, he tells me that upwards of twenty
people have sometimes been lodged.

A description of
a young lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt the
approach of a new fit of madness. She had been out to ride, had
exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her
return, she sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude,
looking very sad, but one of the loveliest objects that ever were
seen. The family spoke to her, but she made no answer, nor took
the least notice; but still sat like a statue in her chair,--a
statue of melancholy and beauty. At last they led her away to
her chamber.

We went to
meeting this forenoon. I saw nothing remarkable, unless a little
girl in the next pew to us, three or four years old, who fell
asleep, with her head in the lap of her maid, and looked very
pretty: a picture of sleeping innocence.

July
11th,Tuesday.--A drive with B---- to
Hallowell, yesterday, where we dined, and afterwards to Gardiner.
The most curious object in this latter place was the elegant new
mansion of ----. It stands on the site of his former dwelling,
which was destroyed by fire. The new building was estimated to
cost about thirty thousand dollars; but twice as much has already
been expended, and a great deal more will be required to complete
it. It is certainly a splendid structure; the material, granite
from the vicinity. At the angles it has small, circular towers;
the portal is lofty and imposing. Relatively to the general
style of domestic architecture in our country, it well deserves
the name of castle or palace. Its situation, too, is fine, far
retired from the public road, and attainable by a winding
carriage-drive; standing amid fertile fields, and with large
trees in the vicinity. There is also a beautiful view from the
mansion, adown the Kennebec.

Beneath some of
the large trees we saw the remains of circular seats, whereupon
the family used to sit before the former house was burned down.
There was no one now in the vicinity of the place, save a man a
yoke of oxen; and what he was about, I did not ascertain. Mr.
---- at present resides in a small dwelling, little more than a
cottage, beside the main road, not far from the gateway which
gives access to his palace.

At Gardiner, on
the wharf, I witnessed the starting of the steamboat New England
for Boston. There was quite a collection of people, looking on
or taking leave of passengers,--the steam puffing,--stages
arriving, full-freighted with ladies and gentlemen. A man was
one moment too late; but running along the gunwale of a mud-scow,
and jumping into a skiff, he was put on board by a black fellow.
The dark cabin, wherein, descending from the sunshiny deck, it
was difficult to discern the furniture, looking-glasses, and
mahogany wainscoting. I met two old college
acquaintances,--O----, who was going to Boston, and B----, with
whom we afterwards drank a glass of wine at the hotel.

B----, Mons.
S---- , and myself continue to live in the same style as
heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each
other. Mons. S-- displays many comical qualities, and manages
to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and
evening,--those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to
take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female
society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our
premises appertains to Nancy, the pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant
of the man who lives in the other part of the house.

On the road from
Hallowell to Augusta we saw little booths, in two places, erected
on the roadside, where boys offered beer, apples, etc., for sale.
We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy
bundle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting
by the highway. They were husband and wife; and B---- says that
an Irishman and his wife, on their journeys, do not usually walk
side by side, but that the man gives the woman the heaviest
burden to carry, and walks on lightly ahead!

A thought comes
into my mind: Which sort of house excites the most contemptuous
feelings in the beholder,--such a house as Mr. ----'s, all
circumstances considered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed
hovels of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung
up like mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks
of the river? Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots
of an old tree are hidden under the ground.

Thursday,July
13th.--Two small Canadian boys came to our house
yesterday, with strawberries to sell. It sounds strangely to
hear children bargaining in French on the borders of Yankee-land.
Among other languages spoken hereabouts must be reckoned the wild
Irish. Some of the laborers on the mill-dam can speak nothing
else. The intermixture of foreigners sometimes gives rise to
quarrels between them and the natives. As we were going to the
village yesterday afternoon, we witnessed the beginning of a
quarrel between a Canadian and a Yankee,--the latter accusing the
former of striking his oxen. B---- thrust himself between and
parted them; but they afterwards renewed their fray, and the
Canadian, I believe, thrashed the Yankee soundly--for which he
had to pay twelve dollars. Yet he was but a little fellow.

Coming to the
Mansion House about supper-time, we found somewhat of a concourse
of people, the Governor and Council being in session on the
subject of the disputed territory. The British have lately
imprisoned a man who was sent to take the census; and the
Mainiacs are much excited on the subject. They wish the Governor
to order out the militia at onceand take possession of the territory with the
strong hand. There was a British army-captain at the Mansion
House; and an idea was thrown out that it would be as well to
seize upon him as a hostage. I would, for the joke's sake,
that it had been done. Personages at the tavern: the Governor,
somewhat stared after as he walked through the bar-room;
Councillors seated about, sitting on benches near the bar, or on
the stoop along the front of the house; the Adjutant-General of
the State; two young Blue-Noses, from Canada or the Provinces; a
gentleman "thumbing his hat" for liquor, or perhaps
playing off the trick of the "honest landlord" on some
stranger. The decanters and wine-bottles on the move, and the
beer and soda founts pouring out continual streams, with a whiz.
Stage-drivers, etc., asked to drink with the aristocracy, and my
host treating and being treated. Rubicund faces; breaths odorous
of brandy-and-water. Occasionally the pop of a champagne
cork.

Returned home,
and took a lesson in French of Mons. S---- . I like him very
much, and have seldom met with a more honest, simple, and
apparently so well-principled a man; which good qualities I
impute to his being, by the father's side, of German blood.
He looks more like a German--or, as he says, like a Swiss--than a
Frenchman, having very light hair and a light complexion, and not
a French expression. He is a vivacious little fellow, and
wonderfully excitable to mirth; and it is truly a sight to see
him laugh;--every feature partakes of his movement, and even his
whole body shares in it, as he rises and dances about the room.
He has great variety of conversation, commensurate with his
experiences in life, and sometimes will talk Spanish, ore
rotundo,--sometimes imitate the Catholic priests,
chanting Latin songs for the dead, in deep, gruff, awful tones,
producing really a very strong impression,--then he will break
out into a light, French song, perhaps of love, perhaps of war,
acting it out, as if on the stage of a theatre: all this
intermingled with continual fun, excited by the incidents of the
passing moment. He has Frenchified all our names, calling B----
Monsieur Du Pont, myself M. de L'Aubépine, and
himself M. le Berger, and all, Knights of the Round-Table. And
we live in great harmony and brotherhood, as queer a life as
anybody leads, and as queer a set as may be found anywhere. In
his more serious intervals, he talks philosophy and deism, and
preaches obedience to the law of reason and morality; which law
he says (and I believe him) he has so well observed, that,
notwithstanding his residence in dissolute countries, he has
never yet been sinful. He wishes me, eight or nine weeks hence,
to accompany him on foot to Quebec, and then to Niagara and New
York. I should like it well, if my circumstances and other
considerations would permit. What pleases much in Mons. S----
is the simple and childlike enjoyment he finds in trifles, and
the joy with which he speaks of going back to his own country,
away from the dull Yankees, who here misunderstand and despise
him. Yet I have never heard him speak harshly of them. I rather
think that B---- and I will be remembered by him with more
pleasure than anybody else in the country; for we have
sympathized with him, and treated him kindly, and like a
gentleman and an equal; and he comes to us at night as to home
and friends.

I went down to
the river to-day to see B---- fish for salmon with a fly,--a
hopeless business; for hesays that only one instance has been known in
the United States of salmon being taken otherwise than with a
net. A few chubs were all the fruit of his piscatory efforts.
But while looking at the rushing and rippling stream, I saw a
great fish, some six feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly
emerge at whole length, turn a somerset, and then vanish again
beneath the water. It was of a glistening, yellowish brown, with
its fins all spread, and looking very strange and startling,
darting out so lifelike from the black water, throwing itself
fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight and to
pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river,
with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were
of curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one
on each side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them.
The sails were colored brown, and appeared like leather or skins,
but were really cloth. At a distance, the vessel looked like, or
at least I compared it to, a monstrous water-insect skimming
along the river. If the sails had been crimson or yellow, the
resemblance would have been much closer. There was a pretty
spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat. It moved
along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These
boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and
some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to
Waterville and thereabouts,--names, as "Paul Pry," on
their sails.

Saturday,July
15th.--Went with B---- yesterday to visit several Irish
shanties, endeavoring to find out who had stolen some rails of a
fence. At the first door at which we knocked (a shanty with an
earthenmound heaped
against the wall, two or three feet thick), the inmates were not
up, though it was past eight o'clock. At last a middle-aged
woman showed herself, half dressed, and completing her toilet.
Threats were made of tearing down her house; for she is a lady of
very indifferent morals, and sells rum. Few of these people are
connected with the mill-dam,--or, at least, many are not so, but
have intruded themselves into the vacant huts which were occupied
by the mill-dam people last year. In two or three places
hereabouts there is quite a village of these dwellings, with a
clay and board chimney, or oftener an old barrel, smoked and
charred with the fire. Some of their roofs are covered with
sods, and appear almost subterranean. One of the little hamlets
stands on both sides of a deep dell, wooded and hush-grown, with
a vista, as it were, into the heart of a wood in one direction,
and to the broad, sunny river in the other: there was a little
rivulet, crossed by a plank, at the bottom of the dell. At two
doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking young women,--one
with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have innumerable
little children; and they are invariably in good health, though
always dirty of face. They come to the door while their mothers
are talking with the visitors, standing straight up on their bare
legs, with their little plump bodies protruding, in one hand a
small tin saucepan, and in the other an iron spoon, with unwashed
mouths, looking as independent as any child or grown person in
the land. They stare unabashed, but make no answer when spoken
to. "I've no call to your fence, Misser B----."
It seems strange that a man should have the right, unarmed with
any legal instrument, of tearing down thedwelling-houses of a score of
families, and driving the inmates forth without a shelter. Yet
B---- undoubtedly has this right; and it is not a little striking
to see how quietly these people contemplate the probability of
his exercising it,--resolving, indeed, to burrow in their holes
as long as may be, yet caring about as little for an ejectment as
those who could find a tenement anywhere, and less. Yet the
women, amid all the trials of their situation, appear to have
kept up the distinction between virtue and vice; those who can
claim the former will not associate with the latter. When the
women travel with young children, they carry the baby slung at
their backs, and sleeping quietly. The dresses of the new-comers
are old-fashioned, making them look aged before their time.

Monsieur S----
shaving himself yesterday morning. He was in excellent spirits,
and could not keep his tongue or body still more than long enough
to make two or three consecutive strokes at his beard. Then he
would turn, flourishing his razor and grimacing joyously,
enacting droll antics, breaking out into scraps and verses of
drinking-songs, "A boire! à
boire!"--then laughing heartily, and crying,
"Vive la gaîté!"--then
resuming his task, looking into the glass with grave face, on
which, however, a grin would soon break out anew, and all his
pranks would be repeated with variations. He turned this foolery
to philosophy, by observing that mirth contributed to goodness of
heart, and to make us love our fellow-creatures. Conversing with
him in the evening, he affirmed, with evident belief in the truth
of what he said, that he would have no objection, except that it
would be a very foolish thing, to expose his whole heart, his
whole inner man, to the view of the world. Not that there
wouldnot be much
evil discovered there; but, as he was conscious of being in a
state of mental and moral improvement, working out his progress
onward, he would not shrink from such a scrutiny. This talk was
introduced by his mentioning the "Minister's Black
Veil," which he said he had seen translated into French, as
an exercise, by a Miss Appleton of Bangor.

Saw by the
river-side, late in the afternoon, one of the above-described
boats going into the stream with the water rippling at the prow,
from the strength of the current and of the boat's motion.
By and by comes down a raft, perhaps twenty yards long, guided by
two men, one at each end,--the raft itself of boards sawed at
Waterville, and laden with square bundles of shingles and round
bundles of clapboards. "Friend," says one man,
"how is the tide now?"--this being important to the
onward progress. They make fast to a tree, in order to wait for
the tide to rise a little higher. It would be pleasant enough to
float down the Kennebec on one of these rafts, letting the river
conduct you onward at its own pace, leisurely displaying to you
all the wild or ordered beauties along its banks, and perhaps
running you aground in some peculiarly picturesque spot, for your
longer enjoyment of it. Another object, perhaps, is a solitary
man paddling himself down the river in a small canoe, the light,
lonely touch of his paddle in the water making the silence seem
deeper. Every few minutes a sturgeon leaps forth, sometimes
behind you, so that you merely hear the splash, and, turning
hastily around, see nothing but the disturbed water. Sometimes
he darts straight on end out of a quiet black spot on which your
eyes happen to be fixed, and, when even his tail is clear of the
surface, he falls down on his side and disappears.

On the
river-bank, an Irishwoman washing some clothes, surrounded by her
children, whose babbling sounds pleasantly along the edge of the
shore; and she also answers in a sweet, kindly, and cheerful
voice, though an immoral woman, and without the certainty of
bread or shelter from day to day. An Irishman sitting angling on
the brink with an alder pole and a clothes-line. At frequent
intervals, the scene is suddenly broken by a loud report like
thunder, rolling along the banks, echoing and reverberating afar.
It is a blast of rocks. Along the margin, sometimes sticks of
timber made fast, either separately or several together; stones
of some size, varying the pebbles and sand; a clayey spot, where
a shallow brook runs into the river, not with a deep outlet, but
finding its way across the bank in two or three single runlets.
Looking upward into the deep glen whence it issues, you see its
shady current. Elsewhere, a high acclivity, with the beach
between it and the river, the ridge broken and caved away, so
that the earth looks fresh and yellow, and is penetrated by the
nests of birds. An old, shining tree-trunk, half in and half out
of the water. An island of gravel, long and narrow, in the
centre of the river. Chips, blocks of wood, slabs, and other
scraps of lumber, strewed along the beach; logs drifting down.
The high bank covered with various trees and shrubbery, and, in
one place, two or three Irish shanties.

Thursday, July 20th.--A drive
yesterday afternoon to a pond in the vicinity of Augusta, about
nine miles off, to fish for white perch. Remarkables: the
steering of the boat through the crooked, labyrinthine brook,
into the open pond,--the man who acted aspilot,--his talking with B----
about politics, the bank, the iron money of "a king who came
to reign, in Greece, over a city called Sparta,"--his advice
to B---- to come amongst the laborers on the mill-dam, because it
stimulated them "to see a man grinning amongst them."
The man took hearty tugs at a bottle of good Scotch whiskey, and
became pretty merry. The fish caught were the yellow perch,
which are not esteemed for eating; the white perch, a beautiful,
silvery, round-backed fish, which bites eagerly, runs about with
the line while being pulled up, makes good sport for the angler,
and an admirable dish; a great chub; and three horned pouts,
which swallow the hook into their lowest entrails. Several dozen
fish were taken in an hour or two, and then we returned to the
shop where we had left our horse and wagon, the pilot very
eccentric behind us. It was a small, dingy shop, dimly lighted
by a single inch of candle, faintly disclosing various boxes,
barrels standing on end, articles hanging from the ceiling; the
proprietor at the counter, whereon appear gin and brandy,
respectively contained in a tin pint-measure and an earthenware
jug, with two or three tumblers beside them, out of which nearly
all the party drank; some coming up to the counter frankly,
others lingering in the background, waiting to be pressed, two
paying for their own liquor and withdrawing. B---- treated them
twice round. The pilot, after drinking his brandy, gave a
history of our fishing expedition, and how many and how large
fish we caught. B---- making acquaintances and renewing them,
and gaining great credit for liberality and
free-heartedness,--two or three boys looking on and listening to
the talk,--the shopkeeper smiling behind his counter, with the
tarnished tin scales beside him,--theinch of candle burning down almost to
extinction. So we got into our wagon, with the fish, and drove
to Robinson's tavern, almost five miles off, where we supped
and passed the night In the bar-room was a fat old countryman on
a journey, and a quack doctor of the vicinity, and an Englishman
with a peculiar accent. Seeing B----'s jointed and
brass-mounted fishing-pole, he took it for a theodolite, and
supposed that we had been on a surveying expedition. At supper,
which consisted of bread, butter, cheese, cake, doughnuts and
gooseberry-pie, we were waited upon by a tall, very tall woman,
young and maiden-looking, yet with a strongly outlined and
determined face. Afterwards we found her to be the wife of mine
host. She poured out our tea, came in when we rang the
table-bell to refill our cups, and again retired. While at
supper, the fat old traveller was ushered through the room into a
contiguous bedroom. My own chamber, apparently the best in the
house, had its walls ornamented with a small, gilt-framed,
foot-square looking-glass, with a hair-brush hanging beneath it;
a record of the deaths of the family written on a black tomb, in
an engraving, where a father, mother, and child were represented
in a graveyard, weeping over said tomb; the mourners dressed in
black, country-cut clothes; the engraving executed in Vermont.
There was also a wood engraving of the Declaration of
Independence, with fac-similes of the autographs; a portrait of
the Empress Josephine, and another of Spring. In the two closets
of this chamber were mine hostess's cloak, best bonnet, and
go-to-meeting apparel. There was a good bed, in which I slept
tolerably well, and, rising betimes, ate breakfast, consisting of
some of our own fish, and then startedfor Augusta. The fat old traveller had gone
off with the harness of our wagon, which the hostler had put on
to his horse by mistake. The tavern-keeper gave us his own
harness, and started in pursuit of the old man, who was probably
aware of the exchange, and well satisfied with it.

Our drive to
Augusta, six or seven miles, was very pleasant, a heavy rain
having fallen during the night, and laid the oppressive dust of
the day before. The road lay parallel with the Kennebec, of
which we occasionally had near glimpses. The country swells back
from the river in hills and ridges, without any interval of level
ground; and there were frequent woods, filling up the valleys or
crowning the summits. The land is good, the farms look neat, and
the houses comfortable. The latter are generally but of one
story, but with large barns; and it was a good sign, that, while
we saw no houses unfinished nor out of repair, one man at least
had found it expedient to make an addition to his dwelling. At
the distance of more than two miles, we had a view of white
Augusta, with its steeples, and the State-House, at the farther
end of the town. Observable matters along the road were the
stage,--all the dust of yesterday brushed off, and no new dust
contracted,--full of passengers, inside and out; among them some
gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all looking fresh and
unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and curious as to the face of the
country, the faces of passing travellers, and the incidents of
their journey; not yet damped, in the morning sunshine, by long
miles of jolting over rough and hilly roads,--to compare this
with their appearance at midday, and as they drive into Bangor at
dusk; two women dashing along in a wagon, and with achild, rattling pretty
speedily down hill;--people looking at us from the open doors and
windows;--the children staring from the wayside;--the mowers
stopping, for a moment, the sway of their scythes;--the matron of
a family, indistinctly seen at some distance within the house her
head and shoulders appearing through the window, drawing her
handkerchief over her bosom, which had been uncovered to give the
baby its breakfast,--the said baby, or its immediate predecessor,
sitting at the door, turning round to creep away on all fours;--a
man building a flat-bottomed boat by the roadside: he talked with
B---- about the Boundary question, and swore fervently in favor
of driving the British "into hell's kitchen" by
main force.

Colonel B----,
the engineer of the mill-dam, is now here, after about a
fortnight's absence. He is a plain country squire, with a
good figure, but with rather a heavy brow; a rough complexion; a
gait stiff, and a general rigidity of manner, something like that
of a schoolmaster. He originated in a country town, and is a
self-educated man. As he walked down the gravel-path to-day,
after dinner, he took up a scythe, which one of the mowers had
left on the sward, and began to mow, with quite a scientific
swing. On the coming of the mower, he laid it down, perhaps a
little ashamed of his amusement. I was interested in this; to
see a man, after twenty-five years of scientific occupation, thus
trying whether his arms retained their strength and skill for the
labors of his youth,--mindful of the day when he wore striped
trousers, and toiled in his shirt-sleeves,--and now tasting
again, for pastime, this drudgery beneath a fervid sun. He stood
awhile, looking at the workmen, and then went to oversee the
laborers at the mill-dam.

Monday,
July 24th.--I bathed in the river on Thursday evening,
and in the brook at the old dam on Saturday and Sunday,--the
former time at noon. The aspect of the solitude at noon was
peculiarly impressive, there being a cloudless sunshine, no wind,
no rustling of the forest-leaves, no waving of the boughs, no
noise but the brawling and babbling of the stream, making its way
among the stones, and pouring in a little cataract round one side
of the mouldering dam. Looking up the brook, there was a long
vista,--now ripples, now smooth and glassy spaces, now large
rocks, almost blocking up the channel; while the trees stood upon
either side, mostly straight, but here and there a branch
thrusting itself out irregularly, and one tree, a pine, leaning
over,--not bending,--but leaning at an angle over the brook,
rough and ragged; birches, alders; the tallest of all the trees
an old, dead, leafless pine, rising white and lonely, though
closely surrounded by others. Along the brook, now the grass and
herbage extended close to the water; now a small, sandy beach.
The wall of rock before described looking as if it had been hewn,
but with irregular strokes of the workman, doing his job by rough
and ponderous strength,--now chancing to hew it away smoothly and
cleanly, now carelessly smiting, and making gaps, or piling on
the slabs of rock, so as to leave vacant spaces. In the
interstices grow brake and broad-leaved forest-grass. The trees
that spring from the top of this wall have their roots pressing
close to the rock, so that there is no soil between; they cling
powerfully, and grasp the crag tightly with their knotty fingers.
The trees on both sides are so thick, that the sight and the
thoughts are almost immediately lost among confused stems,branches, and
clustering green leaves,--a narrow strip of bright blue sky
above, the sunshine falling lustrously down, and making the
pathway of the brook luminous below. Entering among the
thickets, I find the soil strewn with old leaves of preceding
seasons, through which may be seen a black or dark mould; the
roots of trees stretch frequently across the path; often a
moss-grown brown log lies athwart, and when you set your foot
down, it sinks into the decaying substance,--into the heart of
oak or pine. The leafy boughs and twigs of the underbrush enlace
themselves before you, so that you must stoop your head to pass
under, or thrust yourself through amain, while they sweep against
your face, and perhaps knock off your hat. There are rocks mossy
and slippery; sometimes you stagger, with a great rustling of
branches, against a clump of bushes, and into the midst of it.
From end to end of all this tangled shade goes a pathway scarcely
worn, for the leaves are not trodden through, yet plain enough to
the eye, winding gently to avoid tree-trunks and rocks and little
hillocks. In the more open ground, the aspect of a tall,
fire-blackened stump, standing alone, high up on a swell of land,
that rises gradually from one side of the brook, like a monument.
Yesterday, I passed a group of children in this solitary
valley,--two boys, I think, and two girls. One of the little
girls seemed to have suffered some wrong from her companions, for
she was weeping and complaining violently. Another time, I came
suddenly on a small Canadian boy, who was in a hollow place,
among the ruined logs of an old causeway, picking
raspberries,--lonely among bushes and gorges, far up the wild
valley,--and the lonelier seemed the little boy for the bright
sunshine, thatshowed
no one else in a wide space of view except him and me.

Remarkable items:
the observation of Mons. S---- when B---- was saying something
against the character of the French people,--"You ought not
to form an unfavorable judgment of a great nation from mean
fellows like me, strolling about in a foreign country." I
thought it very noble thus to protest against anything
discreditable in himself personally being used against the honor
of his country. He is a very singular person, with an
originality in all his notions;--not that nobody has ever had
such before, but that he has thought them out for himself. He
told me yesterday that one of his sisters was a waiting-maid in
the Rocher de Caucale. He is about the sincerest man I ever
knew, never pretending to feelings that are not in him,--never
flattering. His feelings do not seem to be warm, though they are
kindly. He is so single-minded that he cannot understand
badinage, but takes it all as if meant in earnest,--a German
trait. He values himself greatly on being a Frenchman, though
all his most valuable qualities come from Germany. His
temperament is cool and pure, and he is greatly delighted with
any attentions from the ladies. A short time since, a lady gave
him a bouquet of roses and pinks; he capered and danced and sang,
put it in water, and carried it to his own chamber; but he
brought it out for us to see and admire two or three times a day,
bestowing on it all the epithets of admiration in the French
language,--"Superbe! magnifique!" When
some of the flowers began to fade, he made the rest, with others,
into a new nosegay, and consulted us whether it would be fit to
give to another lady. Contrast this French foppery with his
solemnmoods, when we
sat in the twilight, or after B---- is abed, talking of
Christianity and Deism, of ways of life, of marriage, of
benevolence,--in short, of all deep matters of this world and the
next. An evening or two since, he began singing all manner of
English songs,--such as Mrs. Hemans's "Landing of the
Pilgrims," "Auld Lang Syne," and some of
Moore's,--the singing pretty fair, but in the oddest tone
and accent. Occasionally he breaks out with scraps from French
tragedies, which he spouts with corresponding action. He
generally gets close to me in these displays of musical and
histrionic talent. Once he offered to magnetize me in the manner
of Monsieur P----.

Wednesday, July 26th.--Dined at
Barker's yesterday. Before dinner, sat with several other
persons in the stoop of the tavern. There were B----, J. A.
Chandler, Clerk of the Court, a man of middle age or beyond, two
or three stage people, and, near by, a negro, whom they call
"the Doctor," a crafty-looking fellow, one of whose
occupations is nameless. In presence of this goodly company, a
man of a depressed, neglected air, a soft, simple-looking fellow,
with an anxious expression, in a laborer's dress, approached
and inquired for Mr. Barker. Mine host being gone to Portland,
the stranger was directed to the bar-keeper, who stood at the
door. The man asked where he should find one Mary Ann
Russell,--a question which excited general and hardly suppressed
mirth; for the said Mary Ann is one of a knot of women who were
routed on Sunday evening by Barker and a constable. The man was
told that the black fellow would give him all the information he
wanted. The black fellow asked,--

Here the mirth
was increased, it being evident that the woman was his wife. The
man seemed too simple and obtuse to comprehend the ridicule of
his situation, or to be rendered very miserable by it.
Nevertheless, he made some touching points.

He meant,
probably, that he rests some affection on her. He told us that
she had behaved well, till committed to jail for striking a
child; and I believe he was absent from home at the time, and had
not seen her since. And now he was in search of her, intending,
doubtless, to do his best to get her out of her troubles, and
then to take her back to his home. Some advised him not to look
after her; others recommended him to pay "the Doctor"
aforesaid for guiding him to her; which finally "the
Doctor" did, in consideration of a treat; and the fellow
went off, having heard little but gibes and not one word of
sympathy! I would like to have witnessed his meeting with his
wife.

There was a moral
picturesqueness in the contrasts of the scene,--a man moved as
deeply as his nature would admit, in the midst of hardened,
gibing spectators, heartless towards him. It is worth thinking
over and studying out. He seemed rather hurt and pricked by the
jests thrown at him, yet bore it patiently, andsometimes almost joined in the
laugh, being of an easy, unenergetic temper.

Hints for
characters: Nancy, a pretty, black-eyed, intelligent
servant-girl, living in Captain H----'s family. She comes
daily to make the beds in our part of the house, and exchanges a
good-morning with me, in a pleasant voice, and with a glance and
smile,--somewhat shy, because we are not acquainted, yet capable
of being made conversable. She washes once a week, and may be
seen standing over her tub, with her handkerchief somewhat
displaced from her white neck, because it is hot. Often she
stands with her bare arms in the water, talking with Mrs H----,
or looks through the window, perhaps, at B----, or somebody else
crossing the yard,--rather thoughtfully, but soon smiling or
laughing. Then goeth she for a pail of water. In the afternoon,
very probably, she dresses herself in silks, looking not only
pretty, but lady-like, and strolls round the house, not
unconscious that some gentleman may be staring at her from behind
the green blinds. After supper, she walks to the village.
Morning and evening, she goes a-milking. And thus passes her
life, cheerfully, usefully, virtuously, with hopes, doubtless, of
a husband and children.--Mrs. H---- is a particularly plump,
soft-fleshed, fair-complexioned, comely woman enough, with rather
a simple countenance, not nearly so piquant as Nancy's. Her
walk has something of the roll or waddle of a fat woman, though
it were too much to call her fat. She seems to be a sociable
body, probably laughter-loving. Captain H---- himself has
commanded a steamboat, and has a certain knowledge of life.

Query, in
relation to the man's missing wife, how much desire and
resolution of doing her duty by herhusband can a wife retain, while injuring him
in what is deemed the most essential point?

Observation. The
effect of morning sunshine on the wet grass, on sloping and
swelling land, between the spectator and the sun at some
distance, as across a lawn. It diffused a dim brilliancy over
the whole surface of the field. The mists, slow-rising farther
off, part resting on the earth, the remainder of the column
already ascending so high that you doubt whether to call it a fog
or a cloud.

Friday,
July 28th.--Saw my classmate and formerly intimate
friend, ----, for the first time since we graduated. He has met
with good success in life, in spite of circumstance, having
struggled upward against bitter opposition, by the force of his
own abilities, to be a member of Congress, after having been for
some time the leader of his party in the State Legislature. We
met like old friends, and conversed almost as freely as we used
to do in college days, twelve years ago and more. He is a
singular person, shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful
tact, seizing on each man by his manageable point, and using him
for his own purpose, often without the man's suspecting that
he is made a tool of; and yet, artificial as his character would
seem to be, his conversation, at least to myself, was full of
natural feeling, the expression of which can hardly be mistaken,
and his revelations with regard to himself had really a great
deal of frankness. He spoke of his ambition, of the obstacles
which he had encountered, of the means by which he had overcome
them, imputing great efficacy to his personal intercourse with
people, and his study of their characters; then of his course as
a member of theLegislature and Speaker, and his style of
speaking and its effects; of the dishonorable things which had
been imputed to him, and in what manner he had repelled the
charges. In short, he would seem to have opened himself very
freely as to his public life. Then, as to his private affairs,
he spoke of his marriage, of his wife, his children, and told me,
with tears in his eyes, of the death of a dear little girl, and
how it affected him, and how impossible it had been for him to
believe that she was really to die. A man of the most open
nature might well have been more reserved to a friend, after
twelve years' separation, than--was to me. Nevertheless, he
is really a crafty man, concealing, like a murder-secret,
anything that it is not good for him to have known. He by no
means feigns the good-feeling that he professes, nor is there
anything affected in the frankness of his conversation; and it is
this that makes him so very fascinating. There is such a
quantity of truth and kindliness and warm affections, that a
man's heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He deceives
by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when occasion demands,
bold and fierce as a tiger, determined, and even straightforward
and undisguised in his measures,--a daring fellow as well as a
sly one. Yet, notwithstanding his consummate art, the general
estimate of his character seems to be pretty just. Hardly
anybody, probably, thinks him better than he is, and many think
him worse. Nevertheless, if no overwhelming discovery of
rascality be made, he will always possess influence; though I
should hardly think that he would take any prominent part in
Congress. As to any rascality, I rather believe that he has
thought out for himself a much higher system of morality than any
natural integrity would haveprompted him to adopt; that he has seen the
thorough advantage of morality and honesty; and the sentiment of
these qualities has now got into his mind and spirit, and pretty
well impregnated them. I believe him to be about as honest as
the great run of the world, with something even approaching to
high-mindedness. His person in some degree accords with his
character,--thin and with a thin face, sharp features, sallow, a
projecting brow not very high, deep-set eyes, an insinuating
smile and look, when he meets you, and is about to address you.
I should think that he would do away with this peculiar
expression, for it reveals more of himself than can be detected
in any other way, in personal intercourse with him. Upon the
whole, I have quite a good liking for him, and mean to go to ----
to see him.

Observation. A
steam-engine across the river, which almost continually during
the day, and sometimes all night, may be heard puffing and
panting, as if it uttered groans for being compelled to labor in
the heat and sunshine, and when the world is asleep also.

Monday,
July 31st.--Nothing remarkable to record. A child
asleep in a young lady's arms,--a little baby, two or three
months old. Whenever anything partially disturbed the child, as,
for instance, when the young lady or a by-stander patted its
cheek or rubbed its chin, the child would smile; then all its
dreams seemed to be of pleasure and happiness. At first the
smile was so faint, that I doubted whether it were really a smile
or no; but, on further efforts, it brightened forth very
decidedly. This, without opening its eyes.--A constable, a
homely, good-natured, business-looking man, with a warrant
against anIrishman's wife for throwing a brick-bat
at a fellow. He gave good advice to the Irishman about the best
method of coming easiest through the affair. Finally
settled,--the justice agreeing to relinquish his fees, on
condition that the Irishman would pay for the mending of his old
boots!

I went with
Monsieur S---- yesterday to pick raspberries. He fell through an
old log bridge thrown over a hollow; looking back, only his head
and shoulders appeared through the rotten logs and among the
bushes.--A shower coming on, the rapid running of a little
barefooted boy, coming up unheard, and dashing swiftly past us,
and showing the soles of his naked feet as he ran adown the path,
and up the opposite rise.

Tuesday,
August 1st.--There having been a heavy rain yesterday, a
nest of chimney-swallows was washed down the chimney into the
fireplace of one of the front rooms. My attention was drawn to
them by a most obstreperous twittering; and looking behind the
fire-board, there were three young birds, clinging with their
feet against one of the jambs, looking at me, open-mouthed, and
all clamoring together, so as quite to fill the room with the
short, eager, frightened sound. The old birds, by certain signs
upon the floor of the room, appeared to have fallen victims to
the appetite of the cat. La belle Nancy provided a basket filled
with cotton-wool, into which the poor little devils were put; and
I tried to feed them with soaked bread, of which, however, they
did not eat with much relish. Tom, the Irish boy, gave it as his
opinion that they were not old enough to be weaned. I hung the
basket out of the window, in the sunshine, and uponlooking in, an hour or two after,
found that two of the birds had escaped. The other I tried to
feed, and sometimes, when a morsel of bread was thrust into its
open mouth, it would swallow it. But it appeared to suffer very
much, vociferating loudly when disturbed, and panting, in a
sluggish agony, with eyes closed, or half opened, when let alone.
It distressed me a good deal; and I felt relieved, though
somewhat shocked, when B---- put an end to its misery by
squeezing its head and throwing it out of the window. They were
of a slate-color, and might, I suppose, have been able to shift
for themselves.--The other day a little yellow bird flew into one
of the empty rooms, of which there are half a dozen on the lower
floor, and could not find his way out again, flying at the glass
of the windows, instead of at the door, thumping his head against
the panes or against the ceiling. I drove him into the entry and
chased him from end to end, endeavoring to make him fly through
one of the open doors. He would fly at the circular light over
the door, clinging to the casement, sometimes alighting on one of
the two glass lamps, or on the cords that suspended them,
uttering an affrighted and melancholy cry whenever I came near
and flapped my handkerchief, and appearing quite tired and
sinking into despair. At last he happened to fly low enough to
pass through the door, and immediately vanished into the gladsome
sunshine.--Ludicrous situation of a man, drawing his chaise down
a sloping bank, to wash in the river. The chaise got the better
of him, and, rushing downward as if it were possessed, compelled
him to run at full speed, and drove him up to his chin into the
water. A singular instance, that a chaise may run away with a
man without a horse!

Saturday
August 12th.--Left Augusta a week ago this
morning for ----. Nothing particular in our drive across the
country. Fellow-passenger, a Boston dry-goods dealer, travelling
to collect bills. At many of the country shops he would get out,
and show his unwelcome visage. In the tavern, prints from
Scripture, varnished and on rollers,--such as the Judgment of
Christ; also a droll set of colored engravings of the story of
the Prodigal Son, the figures being clad in modern costume,--or,
at least, that of not more than half a century ago. The father,
a grave, clerical person, with a white wig and black broadcloth
suit; the son, with a cocked hat and laced clothes, drinking wine
out of a glass, and caressing a woman in fashionable dress. At
---- a nice, comfortable boarding-house tavern, without a bar or
any sort of wines or spirits. An old lady from Boston, with her
three daughters, one of whom was teaching music, and the other
two schoolmistresses. A frank, free, mirthful daughter of the
landlady, about twenty-four years old, between whom and myself
there immediately sprang up a flirtation, which made us both feel
rather melancholy when we parted on Tuesday morning. Music in
the evening, with a song by a rather pretty, fantastic little
mischief of a brunette, about eighteen years old, who has married
within a year, and spent the last summer in a trip to the Springs
and elsewhere. Her manner of walking is by jerks, with a quiver,
as if she were made of calves-feet jelly. I talk with everybody:
to Mrs. T---- good sense,--to Mary, good sense, with a mixture
of fun,--to Mrs. G----, sentiment, romance, and nonsense.

Walked with ----
to see General Knox's old mansion,--a large, rusty-looking
edifice of wood, withsome grandeur in the architecture, standing on
the banks of the river, close by the site of an old
burial-ground, and near where an ancient fort had been erected
for defence against the French and Indians. General Knox once
owned a square of thirty miles in this part of the country, and
he wished to settle it in with a tenantry, after the fashion of
English gentlemen. He would permit no edifice to be erected
within a certain distance of his mansion. His patent covered, of
course, the whole present town of Waldoborough, and divers other
flourishing commercial and country villages, and would have been
of incalculable value could it have remained unbroken to the
present time. But the General lived in grand style, and received
throngs of visitors from foreign parts, and was obliged to part
with large tracts of his possessions, till now there is little
left but the ruinous mansion and the ground immediately around
it. His tomb stands near the house,--a spacious receptable, an
iron door at the end of a turf-covered mound, and surmounted by
an obelisk of marble. There are inscriptions to the memory of
several of his family; for he had many children, all of whom are
now dead, except one daughter, a widow of fifty, recently married
to Hon. John H----. There is a stone fence round the monument.
On the outside of this are the gravestones, and large, flat
tombstones of the ancient burial-ground,--the tombstones being of
red freestone, with vacant spaces, formerly inlaid with slate, on
which were the inscriptions, and perhaps coats of arms. One of
these spaces was in the shape of a heart. The people were very
wrathful that the General should have laid out his grounds over
this old burial-place; and he dared never throw down the
gravestones, though his wife, a haughtyEnglish lady, often teased him to do so. But
when the old general was dead, Lady Knox (as they called her)
caused them to be prostrated, as they now lie. She was a woman
of violent passions, and so proud an aristocrat, that, as long as
she lived, she would never enter any house in the town except her
own. When, a married daughter was ill, she used to go in her
carriage to the door and send up to inquire how she did. The
General was personally very popular; but his wife ruled him. The
house and its vicinity, and the whole tract covered by
Knox's patent, may be taken as an illustration of what must
be the result of American schemes of aristocracy. It is not
forty years since this house was built, and Knox was in his
glory; but now the house is all in decay, while within a
stone's-throw of it there is a street of smart white
edifices of one and two stories, occupied chiefly by thriving
mechanics, which has been laid out where Knox meant to have
forests and parks. On the banks of the river, where he intended
to have only one wharf for his own West Indian vessels and yacht,
there are two wharves, with stores and a lime-kiln. Little
appertains to the mansion except the tomb and the old
burial-ground, and the old fort.

The descendants
are all poor, and the inheritance was merely sufficient to make a
dissipated and drunken fellow of the only one of the old
General's sons who survived to middle age. The man's
habits were as bad as possible as long as he had any money; but
when quite ruined, he reformed. The daughter, the only survivor
among Knox's children (herself childless), is a mild,
amiable woman, therein totally different from her mother. Knox,
when he first visited his estate, arriving in a vessel, was
waited upon by adeputation of the squatters, who had resolved
to resist him to the death. He received them with genial
courtesy, made them dine with him aboard the vessel, and sent
them back to their constituents in great love and admiration of
him. He used to have a vessel running to Philadelphia, I think,
and bringing him all sorts of delicacies. His way of raising
money was to give a mortgage on his estate of a hundred thousand
dollars at a time, and receive that nominal amount in goods,
which he would immediately sell at auction for perhaps thirty
thousand. He died by a chicken-bone. Near the house are the
remains of a covered way, by which the French once attempted to
gain admittance into the fort; but the work caved in and buried a
good many of them, and the rest gave up the siege. There was
recently an old inhabitant living who remembered when the people
used to reside in the fort.

Owl's
Head,--a watering-place, terminating a point of land, six or
seven miles from Thomaston. A long island shuts out the prospect
of the sea. Hither coasters and fishing-smacks run in when a
storm is anticipated. Two fat landlords, both young men, with
something of a contrast in their dispositions: one of them being
a brisk, lively, active, jesting, fat man; the other more heavy
and inert, making jests sluggishly, if at all. Aboard the
steamboat, Professor Stuart of Andover, sitting on a sofa in the
saloon, generally in conversation with some person, resolving
their doubts on one point or another, speaking in a very audible
voice; and strangers standing or sitting around to hear him, as
if he were an ancient apostle or philosopher. He is a bulky man,
with a large, massive face, particularly calm in its expression,
and mild enough to be pleasing. When not otherwise occupied, h
reads, without much
notice of what is going on around him. He speaks without effort,
yet thoughtfully.

We got lost in a
fog the morning after leaving Owl's Head. Fired a brass
cannon, rang bell, blew steam, like a whale snorting. After one
of the reports of the cannon, we heard a horn blown at no great
distance, the sound coming soon after the report. Doubtful
whether it came from the shore or a vessel. Continued our
ringing and snorting; and by and by something was seen to mingle
with the fog that obscured everything beyond fifty yards from us.
At first it seemed only like a denser wreath of fog; it darkened
still more, till it took the aspect of sails; then the hull of a
small schooner came beating down towards us, the wind laying her
over towards us, so that her gunwale was almost in the water, and
we could see the whole of her sloping deck.

"Schooner ahoy!" say we. "Halloo! Have you
seen Boston Light this morning?"

"Yes; it bears north-northwest, two miles distant."

"Very much obliged to you," cries our captain.

So the schooner
vanishes into the mist behind. We get up our steam, and soon
enter the harbor, meeting vessels of every rig; and the fog,
clearing away, shows a cloudy sky. Aboard, an old one-eyed
sailor, who had lost one of his feet, and had walked on the stump
from Eastport to Bangor, thereby making a shocking ulcer.

Penobscot Bay is
full of islands, close to which the steamboat is continually
passing. Some are large, with portions of forest and portions of
cleared land; some are mere rocks, with a little green or none,
and inhabited by sea-birds, which fly and flap about hoarsely.
Their eggs may be gathered by the bushel, and aregood to eat. Other islands have
one house and barn on them, this sole family being lords and
rulers of all the land which the sea girds. The owner of such an
island must have a peculiar sense of property and lordship; he
must feel more like his own master and his own man than other
people can. Other islands, perhaps high, precipitous, black
bluffs, are crowned with a white light-house, whence, as evening
comes on, twinkles a star across the melancholy deep,--seen by
vessels coming on the coast, seen from the mainland, seen from
island to island. Darkness descending, and, looking down at the
broad wake left by the wheels of the steamboat, we may see
sparkles of sea-fire glittering through the gloom.

Salem,
August 22d.--A walk yesterday afternoon down to the
Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine,
the sky being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in
consequence, being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But
the sunshine, somehow or other, found its way between the
interstices of the clouds, and illuminated some of the distant
objects very vividly. The white sails of a ship caught it, and
gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull being scarcely visible,
and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels too, so that they
looked like heavenly-winged things, just alighting on a dismal
world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,
they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands
are seen in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also
sunny and their beaches white; while other islands, for no
apparent reason, are in deep shade, and share the gloom of the
rest of the world. Sometimes part of an island isilluminated and part dark. When
the sunshine falls on a very distant island, nearer ones being in
shade, it seems greatly to extend the bounds of visible space,
and put the horizon to a farther distance. The sea roughly
rushing against the shore, and dashing against the rocks, and
grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the shore,
tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place
to place.

The family seat
of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The present
head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne.
William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-36, was a younger
brother of the family.

A young man and
girl meet together, each in search of a person to be known by
some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for that
person to pass. At last some casual circumstance discloses that
each is the one that the other is waiting for. Moral,--that what
we need for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but
how to seek for it.

The journal of a
human heart for a single day in ordinary circumstances. The
lights and shadows that flit across it; its internal
vicissitudes.

Distrust to be
thus exemplified: Various good and desirable things to be
presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance,--as a
friend, a wife, a fortune; but he to refuse them all, suspecting
that it is merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and he to be
told so, when too late.

A man tries to be
happy in love; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and the affair
seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same; in politics, a
seeming patriot; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a
theatre.

An old man, on a
summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory of his
house, and sees the sun's light pass from one object to
another connected with the events of his past life,--as the
school-house, the place where his wife lived in her
maidenhood,--its setting beams falling on the churchyard.

An idle
man's pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day
spent by the seashore: among them, that of sitting on the top of
a cliff, and throwing stones at his own shadow, far below.

A blind man to
set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to trust to
the guidance of anybody who will take the trouble; the different
characters who would undertake it: some mischievous, some
well-meaning, but incapable; perhaps one blind man undertakes to
lead another. At last, possibly, he rejects all guidance, and
blunders on by himself.

In the cabinet of
the Essex Historical Society, old portraits.--Governor Leverett;
a dark mustachioed face, the figure two thirds length, clothed in
a sort of frock-coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded
round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle; the hilt
of the sword steel,--altogether very striking. Sir William
Pepperell, in English regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches,
all of redbroad-cloth, richly gold-embroidered; he holds
a general's truncheon in his right hand, and extends the
left towards the batteries erected against Louisbourg, in the
country near which he is standing. Endicott, Pyncheon, and
others, in scarlet robes, bands, etc. Half a dozen or more
family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown,
crimson, or claret; others with gorgeous gold-embroidered
waistcoats, descending almost to the knees, so as to form the
most conspicuous article of dress. Ladies, with lace ruffles,
the painting of which, in one of the pictures, cost five guineas.
Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight with these family
pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and breast of one
lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in oil,
with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver
Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length, or one third,
in an oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan.
Some pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with
sand. The dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are
generally better done than the faces. Governor Leverett's
gloves,--the glove part of coarse leather, but round the wrist a
deep, three or four inch border of spangles and silver
embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks. A black
glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a
broad bottom. The baby-linen, etc., of Governor Bradford of
Plymouth County. Old manuscript sermons, some written in
short-hand, others in a hand that seems learnt from print.

Nothing gives a
stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family being
crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than
theseblack, dusty,
faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of the Oliver
family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some
other portion of his personal self, would do.

The excruciating
agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her laws) to be
represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the
tortures of the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without
exciting notice.

Suppose a married
couple fondly attached to one another, and to think that they
lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that they
were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What
would be its effect?

Monday,
August 27th.--Went to Boston last Wednesday.
Remarkables:--An author at the American Stationers' Company,
slapping his hand on his manuscript, and crying, "I'm
going to publish."--An excursion aboard a steamboat to
Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for
boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other
authors; a Commodore, ---- Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly
man, with a good deal of roughness in his address; Mr.
Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy. Examination and
exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists. After
examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products,
as wheat in sheaves on the stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted
and spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing
ground;--all cultivated by
the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted
green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to
the winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with
intricacy of rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with
their one or two broad sheets of canvas: going on different
tacks, so that the spectator might think that there was a
different wind for each vessel, or that they scudded across the
sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led them. The farm
boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show, within sight
of the city, yet having nothing to do with it; beholding their
fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and
steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an
island would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it
seems like a little world by itself; and the water may answer
instead of the atmosphere that surrounds planets. The boys
swinging, two together, standing up, and almost causing the ropes
and their bodies to stretch out horizontally. On our departure,
they ranged themselves on the rails of the fence, and, being
dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of pigeons.

On Friday, a
visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in company with the Naval
Officer of Boston, and Cilley. Dined aboard the revenue-cutter
Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird's-eye
maple and mahogany; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue
frocks, with a stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder,
fried fish, corned beef,--claret, afterwards champagne. The
waiter tells the Captain of the cutter that Captain Percival
(Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on the deck of the anchor
hoy (which lies inside of the cutter), smoking his cigar.The captain sends him a
glass of champagne, and inquires of the waiter what Percival says
of it. "He said, sir, 'What does he send me this
damned stuff for?' but drinks, nevertheless." The
Captain characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that
ever was in his manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom.
By and by comes in the steward. "Captain Percival is coming
aboard of you, sir." "Well, ask him to walk down into
the cabin"; and shortly down comes old Captain Percival, a
white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a
blue, Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a
pair of drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an
eccentric expression in his face, which seemed partly wilful,
partly natural. He has not risen to his present rank in the
regular line of the profession; but entered the navy as a
sailing-master, and has all the roughness of that class of
officers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like
a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of
champagne, he began a lecture on economy, and how well it was
that Uncle Sam had a broad back, being compelled to bear so many
burdens as were laid on it,--alluding to the table covered with
wine-bottles. Then he spoke of the fitting up of the cabin with
expensive woods,--of the brooch in Captain Scott's bosom.
Then he proceeded to discourse of politics, taking the opposite
side to Cilley, and arguing with much pertinacity. He seems to
have moulded and shaped himself to his own whims, till a sort of
rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a
kindly nature. He is full of antique prejudices against the
modern fashions of the younger officers, their mustaches and such
fripperies, and prophesies little better than disgracein case of another war;
owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for
her, but denying that there are any officers now like Hull and
Stuart, whose exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreciated,
saying that the Boxer and Enterprise fought the only equal battle
which we won during the war; and that, in that action, an officer
had proposed to haul down the Stars and Stripes, and a common
sailor threatened to cut him to pieces if he should do so. He
spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who wanted to run
from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle
ship; of Commodore Elliot as a liar; but praised Commodore Downes
in the highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of
old integrity; taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests
as if all the money expended were to come out of his own pocket.
This quality was displayed in his resistance to the demand of a
new patent capstan for the revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott
is resolved in such a sailor-like way to get, that he will
probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how his business in
the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the Columbus,
seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great enthusiasm.
He seems to have no ambition beyond his present duties, perhaps
never had any; at any rate, he now passes his life with a sort of
gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor
enough. He is conscious of his peculiarities; for when I asked
him whether it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of
the Navy, he said, "God forbid, for that an old sailor was
always full of prejudices and stubborn whim-whams,"
instancing himself; whereto I agreed. We went round the Navy
Yard with Percival and Commodore Downes, the latter asailor and a gentleman
too, with rather more of the ocean than the drawing-room about
him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured. We looked at
rope-walks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks; and saw the
sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and
cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea.
We returned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat.
Captain Scott, of the cutter, told me a singular story of what
occurred during the action between the Constitution and
Macedonian,--he being powder-monkey aboard the former ship. A
cannon-shot came through the ship's side, and a man's
head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done
without bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well,
the man was walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident;
and Scott seriously affirmed that he kept walking onward at the
same pace, with two jets of blood gushing from his headless
trunk, till, after going about twenty feet without a head, he
sunk down at once, with his legs under him.

[In corroboration
of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IV. of his
"Sylva Sylvarum," or Natural History, in Ten Centuries,
paragraph 400.]

On Saturday, I
called to see E. H----, having previously appointed a meeting for
the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old bachelor,
and truly forlorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great
hobby. He had a good many old papers in his desk at the Custom
House, which he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards
went with me to his sister's, and showed me an old book,
with a record of the children of the first emigrant (who came
over two hundred years ago), in his own handwriting.
E----'smanners
are gentlemanly, and he seems to be very well informed. At a
little distance, I think, one would take him to be not much over
thirty; but nearer at hand one finds him to look rather
venerable,--perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands
shook while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been
startled by my visit; and when we came to the crossings of
streets, he darted across, cautioning me, as if both were in
great danger to be run over. Nevertheless, being very
quick-tempered, he would face the Devil if at all irritated. He
gave a most forlorn description of his life; how, when he came to
Salem, there was nobody except Mr. ---- whom he cared about
seeing; how his position prevented him from accepting of
civilities, because he had no home where he could return them; in
short, he seemed about as miserable a being as is to be found
anywhere,--lonely, and with sensitiveness to feel his loneliness,
and capacities, now withered, to have enjoyed the sweets of life.
I suppose he is comfortable enough when busied in his duties at
the Custom House; for when I spoke to him at my entrance, he was
too much absorbed to hear me at first. As we walked, he kept
telling stories of the family, which seemed to have comprised
many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other
kinds,--one of old Philip English (a Jersey man, the name
originally L'Anglais), who had been persecuted by John
Hawthorne, of witch-time memory, and a violent quarrel ensued.
When Philip lay on his death-bed, he consented to forgive his
persecutor; "But if I get well," said he,
"I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip
left daughters, one of whom married, I believe, the son of the
persecuting John, and thus all the legitimate blood of English
isin our family.
E---- passed from the matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral
pride to give vent to the most arrant democracy and locofocoism
that I ever happened to hear, saying that nobody ought to possess
wealth longer than his own life, and that then it should return
to the people, etc. He says S. I---- has a great fund of
traditions about the family, which she learned from her mother or
grandmother (I forget which), one of them being a Hawthorne. The
old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E---- says, "proud
of being proud," and so is S. I----.

October
7th.--A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright
sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the
same degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,--some brown, some
reddish, some still green; walnuts, yellow,--fallen leaves and
acorns lying beneath; the footsteps crumple them in walking. In
sunny spots beneath the trees, where greening grass is overstrewn
by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed, I disturbed multitudes
of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and they began to
hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and heavy
drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped.
Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were
gathering the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the
trees; the men's coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in
heaps, and each of the men was up in a separate tree. They
conversed together in loud voices, which the air caused to ring
still louder, jeering each other, boasting of their own feats in
shaking down the apples. One got into the very top of his tree,
and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came downthump, thump, bushels
hitting on the ground at once. "There! did you ever hear
anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was pretty.
A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The
barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are
frost-bitten. The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.

Distant clumps of
trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them, have a
phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be
of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would
not be strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses.
When the sun was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the
upper branches of a yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful
effect,--the gentle contrast between the tint of the yellow in
the shade and its ethereal gold in the fading sunshine. The
woods that crown distant uplands were seen to great advantage in
these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly marked out and
distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it were;
while the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy
shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.

The tide, being
high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its small
current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two
little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in
proportion, wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the
salt water. An Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,--huge,
golden pumpkins scattered among the hills of corn,--a
noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down, the sky was deeply
dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the zenith; not
flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of
water, extending towards the west, between high banks, caught
thereflection, and
appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening gold than
the sky which made it bright.

Dandelions and
blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a barn a
prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a
penetrating perfume.

How exceeding
bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a
looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly
marking out the figures and colors of the paper-hangings, which
are scarcely seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown
on an obscure subject.

Man's finest
workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more imperfections it
shows; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope will discover
a rough surface. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough in
Nature's workmanship will show an infinitely minute
perfection, the closer you look into it. The reason of the
minute superiority of Nature's work over man's is, that
the former works from the innermost germ, while the latter works
merely superficially.

Standing in the
cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking towards
an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending bank, with a dense
border of trees, green, yellow, red, russet, all bright colors,
brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun; it was
strange to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer
in this new dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be
made out of the changes in apparel of the familiar trees round
ahouse adapted for
children. But in the lake, beneath the aforesaid border of
trees,--the water being not rippled, but its grassy surface
somewhat moved and shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze
that was breathing on the outer lake,--this being in a sort of
bay,--in the slightly agitated mirror, the variegated trees were
reflected dreamily and indistinctly; a broad belt of bright and
diversified colors shining in the water beneath. Sometimes the
image of a tree might be almost traced; then nothing but this
sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection of the
real scene in an observer's mind,--a confused radiance.

A whirlwind,
whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very
violently.

To well consider
the characters of a family of persons in a certain condition,--in
poverty, for instance,--and endeavor to judge how an altered
condition would affect the character of each.

The aromatic odor
of peat-smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very pleasant.

Salem,
October 14th.--A walk through Beverly to
Browne's Hill, and home by the iron-factory. A bright, cool
afternoon. The trees, in a large part of the space through which
I passed, appeared to be in their fullest glory, bright red,
yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at a distance as if
bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was likewise
the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground were
covered as with a scarlet cloth,--the underbrush being thus
colored. The general character of theseautumnal colors is not gaudy, scarcely gay;
there is something too deep and rich in it: it is gorgeous and
magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the
foot of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with
barberry-bushes, the leaves of which were reddish, and they were
hung with a prodigious quantity of berries. From the summit of
the hill, looking down a tract of woodland at a considerable
distance, so that the interstices between the trees could not be
seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and seemed somewhat
like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the hill is
wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more
immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable
to look down at the square patches of cornfield, or of
potato-ground, or of cabbages still green, or of beets looking
red,--all a man's farm, in short,--each portion of which he
considers separately so important, while you take in the whole at
a glance. Then to cast your eye over so many different
establishments at once and rapidly compare them,--here a house of
gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it;
there a new little white dwelling; there an old farm-house; to
see the barns and sheds and all the out-houses clustered
together; to comprehend the oneness and exclusiveness and what
constitutes the peculiarity of each of so many establishments,
and to have in your mind a multitude of them, each of which is
the most important part of the world to those who live in
it,--this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill
somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard
far below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow; the
white spires of meeting-houses; a sheet of water, partly seen
amongswelling
lands. This Browne's Hill is a long ridge, lying in the
midst of a large, level plain; it looks at a distance somewhat
like a whale, with its head and tail under water, but its immense
back protruding, with steep sides, and a gradual curve along its
length. When you have climbed it on one side, and gaze from the
summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a
discovery,--the landscape being quite different on the two sides.
The cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used
to be named Browne's Folly, still remains, two grass-grown
and shallow hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The house
consisted of two wings, each perhaps sixty feet in length, united
by a middle part, in which was the entrance-hall, and which
looked lengthwise along the hill. The foundation of a spacious
porch may be traced on either side of the central portion; some
of the stones still remain; but even where they are gone, the
line of the porch is still traceable by the greener verdure. In
the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two
barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit; there is also yarrow
with its white flower, and yellow dandelions. The cellars are
still deep enough to shelter a person, all but his head at least,
from the wind on the summit of the hill; but they are all
grass-grown. A line of trees seems to have been planted along
the ridge of the bill. The edifice must have made quite a
magnificent appearance.

Characteristics
during the walk--Apple-trees with only here and there an apple on
the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a gathering.
In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking and
hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the person who does
it. Apples scattered by thewayside, some with pieces bitten out, others
entire, which you pick up and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed
cider-apples, though they have a pretty, waxen appearance. In
sunny spots of woodland, boys in search of nuts, looking
picturesque among the scarlet and golden foliage. There is
something in this sunny autumnal atmosphere that gives a peculiar
effect to laughter and joyous voices,--it makes them infinitely
more elastic and gladsome than at other seasons. Heaps of dry
leaves tossed together by the wind, as if for a couch and
lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is warming
it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, heaped in the angle of
a house till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with
a rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an
inlet of the sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a
large schooner appear amid the rural landscape; she is unloading
a cargo of wood, moist with rain or salt water that has dashed
over it. Perhaps you hear the sound of an axe in the woodland;
occasionally, the report of a fowling-piece. The travellers in
the early part of the afternoon look warm and comfortable as if
taking a summer drive; but as eve draws nearer, you meet them
well wrapped in topcoats or cloaks, or rough, great surtouts, and
red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort, but pressing
homeward. The characteristic conversation among teamsters and
country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to
go at the same pace as an ox-team,--perhaps discussing the
qualities of a yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of
water. Some of the country shops with the doors closed; others
still open as in summer. I meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse
and saw on his shoulders, returning fromwork. As night draws on, you
begin to see the gleaming of fires on the ceilings in the houses
which you pass. The comfortless appearance of houses at bleak
and bare spots,--you wonder how there can be any enjoyment in
them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her
shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,--it looks
observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire,
grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip
away from their bills.

October
16th.--Spent the whole afternoon in a ramble to the
sea-shore, near Phillips's Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny
afternoon, the very pleasantest day, probably, that there has
been in the whole course of the year. People at work,
harvesting, without their coats. Cocks, with their squad of
hens, in the grass-fields, hunting grasshoppers, chasing them
eagerly with outspread wings, appearing to take much interest in
the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens picking up the ears
of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying insects of all
sorts are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than I have
seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in
the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the
gentle gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon,
and sometimes a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a
pleasant buzz of many insects.

Crossed the
fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long
beach,--at least a mile long, I should think,--terminated by
craggy rocks at either end, and backed by a high broken bank, the
grassy summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking
away,and
precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some
parts, is a vast number of pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up
thither by the sea long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with
hardly any pebbles intermixed upon it. When the tide is part way
down, there is a margin of several yards from the water's
edge, along the whole mile length of the beach, which glistens
like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines bright in the
sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the water.
Above this margin the sand is not wet, and grows less and less
damp the farther towards the bank you keep. In some places your
footstep is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the
square toe, and every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere,
the impression is imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot
imprint the whole. As you tread, a dry spot flashes around your
step, and grows moist as you lift your foot again. Pleasant to
pass along this extensive walk, watching the surf-wave;--how
sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but dies away
ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many such
abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and
rolls onward, heightening and heightening without foam at the
summit of the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on
the beach, with a loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk
along, you are preceded by a flock of twenty or thirty beach
birds, which are seeking, I suppose, for food on the margin of
the surf, yet seem to be merely sporting, chasing the sea as it
retires, and running up before the impending wave. Sometimes
they let it bear them off their feet, and float lightly on its
breaking summit; sometimes they flutter and seem to reston the feathery
spray. They are little birds with gray backs and snow-white
breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or quite
as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw
near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then
recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold
their multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you
reach the end of the beach, you become quite attached to these
little sea-birds, and take much interest in their occupations.
After passing in one direction, it is pleasant then to retrace
your footsteps. Your tracks being all traceable, you may recall
the whole mood and occupation of your mind during your first
passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a shell that
you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long
sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable
distance. Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly.
Here you fronted the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the
sunny blue. Here you looked at some plant on the bank. Here
some vagary of mind seems to have bewildered you; for your tracks
go round and round, and interchange each other without visible
reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped them upon the
water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor
sea-shell in the sand.

After leaving the
beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed about
everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost
into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,--in some places,
a thick carpet of seaweed laid over the pebbles, into which your
foot would sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea
replenishes at high tide, and thenleaves the bottom all covered with various
sorts of sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's
private garden. I saw a crab in one of them; five-fingers too.
From the edge of the rocks, you may look off into deep, deep
water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I found a great bird,
whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I scarcely know.
It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might be
asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take
flight; but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it.
Sometimes a dead fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a
beacon upon it, looking like a monument erected to those who have
perished by shipwreck. The smoked, extempore fire-place, where a
party cooked their fish. About midway on the beach, a
fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the
land, it is quite a rippling little current; but, in flowing
across the sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last
is quite lost, and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute
to the main.

An article to be
made of telling the stories of the tiles of an old-fashioned
chimney-piece to a child.

A person
conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would
pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.

A description of
the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the prominent
personages in each. There should be some story connected with
it,--as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel,
and gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till
he got below ground into a cellar.

A person to be in
the possession of something as perfect as mortal man has a right
to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it entirely.

A person to spend
all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve something
naturally impossible,--as to make a conquest over Nature.

Meditations about
the main gas-pipe of a great city,--if the supply were to be
stopped, what would happen? How many different scenes it sheds
light on? It might be made emblematical of something.

December
6th.--A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her
hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror,

A house to be
built over a natural spring of inflammable gas, and to be
constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from
this? It is carburetted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft
shale or slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more
or less carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of
Lockport and Niagara Falls, and elsewhere in New York. I believe
it indicates coal. At Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by
it. Elsewhere, a farm-house was lighted by it, and no other fuel
used in the coldest weather.

Gnomes, or other
mischievous little fiends, to be represented as burrowing in the
hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself to their
power. It should be a child's story. This should be one of
many modes of petty torment. They should be contrastedwith beneficent
fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good.

Some very
famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the world.
Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some
unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.

A cloud in the
shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended towards the
moon.

On being
transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal.
This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly
things, made evident by the want of congruity between ourselves
and them. By and by we become mutually adapted, and the
perception is lost.

An old
looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the
images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its
surface.

Our Indian
races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans, and
Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth their
history will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.

A portrait of
a person in New England to be recognized as of the same person
represented by a portrait in Old England. Having distinguished
himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been
heardof till he
was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in
New England.

A virtuous but
giddy girl to attempt to play a trick on a man. He sees what she
is about, and contrives matters so that she throws herself
completely into his power, and is ruined,--all in jest.

A letter,
written a century or more ago, but which has never yet been
unsealed.

A partially
insane man to believe himself the Provincial Governor or other
great official of Massachusetts. The scene might be the Province
House.

A dreadful
secret to be communicated to several people of various
characters,--grave or gay, and they all to become insane,
according to their characters, by the influence of the secret.

Stories to be
told of a certain person's appearance in public, of his
having been seen in various situations, and of his making visits
in private circles; but finally, on looking for this person, to
come upon his old grave and mossy tombstone.

The influence
of a peculiar mind, in close communion with another, to drive the
latter to insanity.

To look at a
beautiful girl, and picture all the lovers, in different
situations, whose hearts are centred upon her.

May 11,
1838.--At Boston last week. Items:--A young man, with a small
mustache, dyed brown, reddish from its original light color. He
walks with an affected gait, his arms crooked outwards, treading
much on his toes. His conversation is about the theatre, where
he has a season ticket,--about an amateur who lately appeared
there, and about actresses, with other theatrical scandal.--In
the smoking-room, two checker and backgammon boards; the landlord
a great player, seemingly a stupid man, but with considerable
shrewdness and knowledge of the world.-- F----, the comedian, a
stout, heavy-looking Englishman, of grave deportment, with no
signs of wit or humor, yet aiming at both in conversation, in
order to support his character. Very steady and regular in his
life, and parsimonious in his disposition,--worth $50,000, made
by his profession.--A clergyman, elderly, with a white
neck-cloth, very unbecoming, an unworldly manner, unacquaintance
with the customs of the house, and learning them in a childlike
way. A ruffle to his shirt, crimped.--A gentleman, young,
handsome, and sea-flushed, belonging to Oswego, New York, but
just arrived in port from the Mediterranean: he inquires of me
about the troubles in Canada, which were first beginning to make
a noise when he left the country,--whether they are all over. I
tell him all is finished, except the hanging of the prisoners.
Then we talk over the matter, and I tell him the fates of the
principal men,--some banished to New South Wales, one hanged,
others in prison, others, conspicuous at first, now almost
forgotten.--Apartments of private families in the hotel,--what
sort of domesticity there may be in them; eating in public, with
no board of their own. The gas that lights the restof the house lights
them also, in the chandelier from the ceiling.--A shabby-looking
man, quiet, with spectacles, at first wearing an old, coarse
brown frock, then appearing in a suit of elderly black, saying
nothing unless spoken to, but talking intelligently when
addressed. He is an editor, and I suppose printer, of a country
paper. Among the guests, he holds intercourse with gentlemen of
much more respectable appearance than himself, from the same part
of the country.--Bill of fare; wines printed on the back, but
nobody calls for a bottle. Chairs turned down for expected
guests. Three-pronged steel forks. Cold supper from nine to
eleven P.M. Great, round, mahogany table, in the sitting-room,
covered with papers. In the morning, before and soon after
breakfast, gentlemen reading the morning papers, while others
wait for their chance, or try to pick out something from the
papers of yesterday or longer ago. In the forenoon, the Southern
papers are brought in, and thrown damp and folded on the table.
The eagerness with which those who happen to be in the room start
up and make prize of them. Play-bills, printed on yellow paper,
laid upon the table. Towards evening comes the
"Transcript."

June
15th.--The red light which the sunsets at this season
diffuse; there being showery afternoons, but the sun setting
bright amid clouds, and diffusing its radiance over those that
are scattered in masses all over the sky. It gives a rich tinge
to all objects, even to those of sombre hues, yet without
changing the hues. The complexions of people are exceedingly
enriched by it; they look warm, and kindled with a mild fire.
The whole scenery and personages acquire,methinks, a passionate character.
A love-scene should be laid on such an evening. The trees and
the grass have now the brightest possible green, there having
been so many showers alternating with such powerful sunshine.
There are roses and tulips and honeysuckles, with their sweet
perfume; in short, the splendor of a more gorgeous climate than
ours might be brought into the picture.

The situation of
a man in the midst of a crowd, yet as completely in the power of
another, life and all, as if they two were in the deepest
solitude.

Tremont,
Boston, June 16th.--Tremendously hot weather
to-day. Went on board the Cyane to see Bridge, the purser. Took
boat from the end of Long Wharf, with two boatmen who had just
landed a man. Row round to the starboard side of the sloop,
where we pass up the steps, and are received by Bridge, who
introduces us to one of the lieutenants,--Hazard. Sailors and
midshipmen scattered about,--the middies having a foul anchor,
that is, an anchor with a cable twisted round it, embroidered on
the collars of their jackets. The officers generally wear blue
jackets, with lace on the shoulders, white pantaloons, and cloth
caps. Introduced into the cabin,--a handsome room, finished with
mahogany, comprehending the width of the vessel; a sideboard with
liquors, and above it a looking-glass; behind the cabin, an inner
room, in which is seated a lady, waiting for the captain to come
on board; on each side of this inner cabin, a large and
convenient state-room with bed,--the doors opening into the
cabin. This cabin is on a level with the quarter-deck, and is
covered by the poop-deck. Goingdown below stairs, you come to the ward-room,
a pretty large room, round which are the state-rooms of the
lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, etc. A stationary table. The
ship's main-mast comes down through the middle of the room,
and Bridge's chair, at dinner, is planted against it. Wine
and brandy produced; and Bridge calls to the Doctor to drink with
him, who answers affirmatively from his state-room, and shortly
after opens the door and makes his appearance. Other officers
emerge from the side of the vessel, or disappear into it, in the
same way. Forward of the wardroom, adjoining it, and on the same
level, is the midshipmen's room, on the larboard side of the
vessel, not partitioned off, so as to be shut up. On a shelf a
few books; one midshipman politely invites us to walk in; another
sits writing. Going farther forward, on the same level, we come
to the crew's department, part of which is occupied by the
cooking-establishment, where all sorts of cooking is going on for
the officers and men. Through the whole of this space, ward-room
and all, there is barely room to stand upright, without the hat
on. The rules of the quarterdeck (which extends aft from the
main-mast) are, that the midshipmen shall not presume to walk on
the starboard side of it, nor the men to come upon it at all,
unless to speak to an officer. The poop-deck is still more
sacred,--the lieutenants being confined to the larboard side, and
the captain alone having a right to the starboard. A marine was
pacing the poop-deck, being the only guard that I saw stationed
in the vessel,--the more stringent regulations being relaxed
while she is preparing for sea. While standing on the
quarter-deck, a great piping at the gangway, and the second
cutter comes alongside, bringing the consuland some other gentleman to visit
the vessel. After a while, we are rowed ashore with them, in the
same boat. Its crew are new hands, and therefore require much
instruction from the cockswain. We are seated under an awning.
The guns of the Cyane are medium thirty-two pounders; some of
them have percussion locks.

At the Tremont, I
had Bridge to dine with me: iced champagne, claret in glass
pitchers. Nothing very remarkable among the guests. A
wine-merchant, French apparently, though he had arrived the day
before in a bark from Copenhagen: a somewhat corpulent gentleman,
without so good manners as an American would have in the same
line of life, but good-natured, sociable, and civil, complaining
of the heat. He had rings on his fingers of great weight of
metal, and one of them had a seal for letters; brooches at the
bosom, three in a row, up and down; also a gold watch-guard, with
a seal appended. Talks of the comparative price of living, of
clothes, etc., here and in Europe. Tells of the prices of wines
by the cask and pipe. Champagne, he says, is drunk of better
quality here than where it grows.--A vendor of patent medicines,
Doctor Jaques, makes acquaintance with me, and shows me his
recommendatory letters in favor of himself and drugs, signed by a
long list of people. He prefers, he says, booksellers to
druggists as his agents, and inquired of me about them in this
town. He seems to be an honest man enough, with an intelligent
face, and sensible in his talk, but not a gentleman, wearing a
somewhat shabby brown coat and mixed pantaloons, being
ill-shaven, and apparently not well acquainted with the customs
of a fashionable hotel. A simplicity about him that is
likable,though, I
believe, he comes from Philadelphia.--Naval officers, strolling
about town, bargaining for swords and belts, and other military
articles; with the tailor, to have naval buttons put on their
shore-going coats, and for their pantaloons, suited to the
climate of the Mediterranean. It is the almost invariable habit
of officers, when going ashore or staying on shore, to divest
themselves of all military or naval insignia, and appear as
private citizens. At the Tremont, young gentlemen with long
earlocks,--straw hats, light, or dark-mixed.--The theatre being
closed, the play-bills of many nights ago are posted up against
its walls.

July
4th.--A very hot, bright, sunny day; town much thronged;
booths on the Common, selling gingerbread, sugar-plums, and
confectionery, spruce beer, lemonade. Spirits forbidden, but
probably sold stealthily. On the top of one of the booths a
monkey, with a tail two or three feet long. He is fastened by a
cord, which, getting tangled with the flag over the booth, he
takes hold and tries to free it. He is the object of much
attention from the crowd, and played with by the boys, who toss
up gingerbread to him, while he nibbles and throws it down again.
He reciprocates notice, of some kind or other, with all who
notice him. There is a sort of gravity about him. A boy pulls
his long tail, whereat he gives a slight squeak, and for the
future elevates it as much as possible. Looking at the same
booth by and by, I find that the poor monkey has been obliged to
betake himself to the top of one of the wooden joists that stick
up high above. There are boys going about with molasses candy,
almost melted down in the sun. Shows: A mammoth rat; a
collection of pirates, murderers, and the like, inwax. Constables in considerable
number, parading about with their staves, sometimes conversing
with each other, producing an effect by their presence, without
having to interfere actively. One or two old salts, rather the
worse for liquor: in general the people are very temperate. At
evening the effect of things rather more picturesque; some of the
booth-keepers knocking down the temporary structures, and putting
the materials in wagons to carry away; other booths lighted up,
and the lights gleaming through rents in the sail-cloth tops.
The customers are rather riotous, calling loudly and whimsically
for what they want; a young fellow and a girl coming arm in arm;
two girls approaching the booth, and getting into conversation
with the folks thereabout. Perchance a knock-down between two
half-sober fellows in the crowd: a knock-down without a heavy
blow, the receiver being scarcely able to keep his footing at any
rate. Shoutings and hallooings, laughter, oaths,--generally a
good-natured tumult; and the constables use no severity, but
interfere, if at all, in a friendly sort of way. I talk with one
about the way in which the day has passed, and he bears testimony
to the orderliness of the crowd, but suspects one booth of
selling liquor, and relates one scuffle. There is a talkative
and witty seller of gingerbread holding forth to the people from
his cart, making himself quite a noted character by his readiness
of remark and humor, and disposing of all his wares. Late in the
evening, during the fire-works, people are consulting how they
are to get home,--many having long miles to walk: a father, with
wife and children, saying it will be twelve o'clock before
they reach home, the children being already tired to death. The
moon beautifully dark-bright, not givingso white a light as sometimes.
The girls all look beautiful and fairy-like in it, not exactly
distinct, nor yet dim. The different characters of female
countenances during the day,--mirthful and mischievous, slyly
humorous, stupid, looking genteel generally, but when they speak
often betraying plebeianism by the tones of their voices. Two
girls are very tired,--one a pale, thin, languid-looking
creature; the other plump, rosy, rather overburdened with her own
little body. Gingerbread figures, in the shape of Jim Crow and
other popularities.

In the old burial
ground, Charter Street, a slate gravestone, carved round the
borders, to the memory of "Colonel John Hathorne,
Esq.," who died in 1717. This was the witch-judge. The
stone is sunk deep into the earth, and leans forward, and the
grass grows very long around it; and, on account of the moss, it
was rather difficult to make out the date. Other Hathornes lie
buried in a range with him on either side. In a corner of the
burial-ground, close under Dr. P----'s garden fence, are
the most ancient stones remaining in the graveyard; moss-grown,
deeply sunken. One to "Dr. John Swinnerton,
Physician," in 1688; another to his wife. There, too, is
the grave of Nathaniel Mather, the younger brother of Cotton, and
mentioned in the Magnalia as a hard student, and of great
promise. "An aged man at nineteen years," saith the
gravestone. It affected me deeply, when I had cleared away the
grass from the half-buried stone, and read the name. An
apple-tree or two hang over these old graves, and throw down the
blighted fruit on Nathaniel Mather's grave,--he blighted
too. It gives strange ideas, to think howconvenient to Dr. P----'s
family this burial-ground is,--the monuments standing almost
within arm's reach of the side windows of the parlor,--and
there being a little gate from the back yard through which we
step forth upon those old graves aforesaid. And the tomb of the
P. family is right in front, and close to the gate. It is now
filled, the last being the refugee Tory, Colonel P----, and his
wife. M. P---- has trained flowers over this tomb, on account of
her friendly relations with Colonel P----.

It is not, I
think, the most ancient families that have tombs,--their ancestry
for two or three generations having been reposited in the earth
before such a luxury as a tomb was thought of. Men who founded
families, and grew rich, a century or so ago, were probably the
first.

There is a tomb
of the Lyndes, with a slab of slate affixed to the brick masonry
on one side, and carved with a coat of arms.

July
10th.--A fishing excursion, last Saturday afternoon,
eight or ten miles out in the harbor. A fine wind out, which
died away towards evening, and finally became quite calm. We
cooked our fish on a rock named "Satan," about forty
feet long and twenty broad, irregular in its shape, and of uneven
surface, with pools of water here and there, left by the
tide,--dark brown rock, or whitish; there was the excrement of
sea-fowl scattered on it, and a few feathers. The water was deep
around the rock, and swelling up and downward, waving the
seaweed. We built two fires, which, as the dusk deepened, cast a
red gleam over the rock and the waves, and made the sea, on the
side away from the sunset, look dismal; but by and byup came the moon,
red as a house afire, and, as it rose, it grew silvery bright,
and threw a line of silver across the calm sea. Beneath the moon
and the horizon, the commencement of its track of brightness,
there was a cone of blackness, or of very black blue. It was
after nine before we finished our supper, which we ate by
firelight and moonshine, and then went aboard our decked boat
again,--no safe achievement in our ticklish little dory. To
those remaining in the boat, we had looked very picturesque
around our fires, and on the rock above them,--our statues being
apparently increased to the size of the sons of Anak. The tide,
now coming up, gradually dashed over the fires we had left, and
so the rock again became a desert. The wind had now entirely
died away, leaving the sea smooth as glass, except a quiet swell,
and we could only float along, as the tide bore us, almost
imperceptibly. It was as beautiful a night as ever shone,--calm,
warm, bright, the moon being at full. On one side of us was
Marblehead light-house, on the other, Baker's Island; and
both, by the influence of the moonlight, had a silvery hue,
unlike their ruddy beacon tinge in dark nights. They threw long
reflections across the sea, like the moon. There we floated
slowly with the tide till about midnight, and then, the tide
turning, we fastened our vessel to a pole, which marked a rock,
so as to prevent being carried back by the reflux. Some of the
passengers turned in below; some stretched themselves on deck;
some walked about, smoking cigars. I kept the deck all night.
Once there was a little cat's-paw of a breeze, whereupon we
untied ourselves from the pole; but it almost immediately died
away, and we were compelled to make fast again. At about two
o'clock, up rose themorning-star, a round, red, fiery ball, very
comparable to the moon at its rising, and, getting upward, it
shone marvelously bright, and threw its long reflection into the
sea, like the moon and the two light-houses. It was Venus, and
the brightest star I ever beheld; it was in the northeast. The
moon made but a very small circuit in the sky, though it shone
all night. The aurora borealis shot upwards to the zenith, and
between two and three o'clock the first streak of dawn
appeared, stretching far along the edge of the eastern
horizon,--a faint streak of light; then it gradually broadened
and deepened, and became a rich saffron tint, with violet above,
and then an ethereal and transparent blue. The saffron became
intermixed with splendor, kindling and kindling, Baker's
Island lights being in the centre of the brightness, so that they
were extinguished by it, or at least grew invisible. On the
other side of the boat, the Marblehead light-house still threw
out its silvery gleam, and the moon shone brightly too; and its
light looked very singularly, mingling with the growing daylight.
It was not like the moonshine, brightening as the evening
twilight deepens; for now it threw its radiance over the
landscape, the green and other tints of which were displayed by
the daylight, whereas at evening all those tints are obscured.
It looked like a milder sunshine,--a dreamy sunshine,--the
sunshine of a world not quite so real and material as this. All
night we had heard the Marblehead clocks telling the hour. Anon,
up came the sun, without any bustle, but quietly, his antecedent
splendors having gilded the sea for some time before. It had
been cold towards morning, but now grew warm, and gradually
burning hot in the sun. A breeze sprang up, but ourfirst use of it was
to get aground on Coney Island about five o'clock, where we
lay till nine or thereabout, and then floated slowly up to the
wharf. The roar of distant surf, the rolling of porpoises, the
passing of shoals of fish, a steamboat smoking along at a
distance, were the scene on my watch. I fished during the night,
and, feeling something on the line, I drew up with great
eagerness and vigor. It was two of those broad-leaved sea-weeds,
with stems like snakes, both rooted on a stone,--all which came
up together. Often these sea-weeds root themselves on mussels.
In the morning, our pilot killed a flounder with the boat-hook,
the poor fish thinking himself secure on the bottom.

Ladurlad, in
"The Curse of Kehama," on visiting a certain celestial
region, the fire in his heart and brain died away for a season,
but was rekindled again on returning to earth. So may it be with
me in my projected three months' seclusion from old
associations.

July
13th.--A show of wax-figures, consisting almost wholly
of murderers and their victims,--Gibbs and Hansley, the pirates,
and the Dutch girl whom Gibbs murdered. Gibbs and Hansley were
admirably done, as natural as life; and many people who had known
Gibbs would not, according to the showman, be convinced that this
wax-figure was not his skin stuffed. The two pirates were
represented with halters round their necks, just ready to be
turned off; and the sheriff stood behind them, with his watch,
waiting forthe
moment. The clothes, halter, and Gibbs's hair were
authentic. E. K. Avery and Cornell,--the former a figure in
black, leaning on the back of a chair, in the attitude of a
clergyman about to pray; an ugly devil, said to be a good
likeness. Ellen Jewett and R. P. Robinson, she dressed richly,
in extreme fashion, and very pretty; he awkward and stiff, it
being difficult to stuff a figure to look like a gentleman. The
showman seemed very proud of Ellen Jewett, and spoke of her
somewhat as if this wax-figure were a real creation. Strong and
Mrs. Whipple, who together murdered the husband of the latter.
Lastly the Siamese twins. The showman is careful to call his
exhibition the "Statuary." He walks to and fro before
the figures, talking of the history of the persons, the moral
lessons to be drawn therefrom, and especially of the excellence
of the wax-work. He has for sale printed histories of the
personages. He is a friendly, easy-mannered sort of a
half-genteel character, whose talk has been moulded by the
persons who most frequent such a show; an air of superiority of
information, a moral instructor, with a great deal of real
knowledge of the world. He invites his departing guests to call
again and bring their friends, desiring to know whether they are
pleased; telling that he had a thousand people on the 4th of
July, and that they were all perfectly satisfied. He talks with
the female visitors, remarking on Ellen Jewett's person and
dress to them, he having "spared no expense in dressing her;
and all the ladies say that a dress never set better, and he
thinks he never knew a handsomer female." He goes to and
fro, snuffing the candles, and now and then holding one to the
face of a favorite figure. Ever and anon, hearing steps upon the
staircase,he goes
to admit a new visitor. The visitors,--a half-bumpkin, half
country-squire-like man, who has something of a knowing air, and
yet looks and listens with a good deal of simplicity and faith,
smiling between whiles; a mechanic of the town; several
decent-looking girls and women, who eye Ellen herself with more
interest than the other figures,--women having much curiosity
about such ladies; a gentlemanly sort of person, who looks
somewhat ashamed of himself for being there, and glances at me
knowingly, as if to intimate that he was conscious of being out
of place; a boy or two, and myself, who examine wax faces and
faces of flesh with equal interest. A political or other satire
might be made by describing a show of wax-figures of the
prominent public men; and by the remarks of the showman and the
spectators, their characters and public standing might be
expressed. And the incident of Judge Tyler as related by E----
might be introduced.

A series of
strange, mysterious, dreadful events to occur, wholly destructive
of a person's happiness. He to impute them to various
persons and causes, but ultimately finds that he is himself the
sole agent. Moral, that our welfare depends on ourselves.

The strange
incident in the court of Charles IX. of France: he and five other
maskers being attired in coats of linen covered with pitch and
bestuck with flax to represent hairy savages. They entered the
hall dancing, the five being fastened together, and the king in
front. By accident the five were set on fire with a torch. Two
were burned to death on the spot, two afterwards died; one fled
to the buttery, andjumped into a vessel of water. It might be
represented as the fate of a squad of dissolute men.

A perception, for
a moment, of one's eventual and moral self, as if it were
another person,--the observant faculty being separated, and
looking intently at the qualities of the character. There is a
surprise when this happens,--this getting out of one's
self,--and then the observer sees how queer a fellow he is.

July
27th.--Left home [Salem] on the 23d instant. To Boston
by stage, and took the afternoon cars for Worcester. A little
boy returning from the city, several miles, with a basket of
empty custard-cups, the contents of which he had probably sold at
the depot. Stopped at the Temperance House. An old gentleman,
Mr. Phillips, of Boston, got into conversation with me, and
inquired very freely as to my character, tastes, habits, and
circumstances,--a freedom sanctioned by his age, his kindly and
beneficent spirit, and the wisdom of his advice. It is strange
how little impertinence depends on what is actually said, but
rather on the manner and motives of saying it. "I want to
do you good," said he with warmth, after becoming,
apparently, moved by my communications. "Well, sir,"
replied I, "I wish you could, for both our sakes; for I have
no doubt it would be a great satisfaction to you." He asked
the most direct questions of another young man; for instance,
"Are you married?" having before ascertained that point
with regard to myself. He told me by all means to act,
in whatever way; observing that he himself would have no
objection to be a servant, if no other mode of action presented
itself.

The landlord of
the tavern, a decent, active, grave, attentive personage, giving
me several cards of his house to distribute on my departure. A
judge, a stout, hearty country squire, looking elderly; a hale
and rugged man, in a black coat, and thin, light pantaloons.

Started for
Northampton at half past nine in the morning. A respectable sort
of man and his son on their way to Niagara,--grocers, I believe,
and calculating how to perform the tour, subtracting as few days
as possible from the shop. Somewhat inexperienced travellers,
and comparing everything advantageously or otherwise with Boston
customs; and considering themselves a long way from home, while
yet short of a hundred miles from it. Two ladies, rather
good-looking. I rode outside nearly all day, and was very
sociable with the driver and another outside passenger. Towards
night, took up an essence-vendor for a short distance. He was
returning home, after having been out on a tour two or three
weeks, and nearly exhausted his stock. He was not exclusively an
essence-pedlar, having a large tin box, which had been filled
with dry goods, combs, jewelry, etc., now mostly sold out. His
essences were of aniseseed, cloves, red-cedar, wormwood, together
with opodeldoc, and an oil for the hair. These matters are
concocted at Ashfield, and the pedlars are sent about with vast
quantities. Cologne-water is among the essences manufactured,
though the bottles have foreign labels on them. The pedlar was
good-natured and communicative, and spoke very frankly about his
trade, which he seemed to like better than farming, though his
experience of it is yet brief. He spoke of the trials of temper
to which pedlars are subjected, but said that it wasnecessary to be
forbearing, because the same road must be travelled again and
again. The pedlars find satisfaction for all contumelies in
making good bargains out of their customers. This man was a
pedlar in quite a small way, making but a narrow circuit, and
carrying no more than an open basket full of essences; but some
go out with wagon-loads. He himself contemplated a trip
westward, in which case he would send on quantities of his wares
ahead to different stations. He seemed to enjoy the intercourse
and seeing of the world. He pointed out a rough place in the
road, where his stock of essences had formerly been broken by a
jolt of the stage. What a waste of sweet smells on the desert
air! The essence-labels stated the efficacy of the stuffs for
various complaints of children and grown people. The driver was
an acquaintance of the pedlar, and so gave him his drive for
nothing, though the pedlar pretended to wish to force some silver
into his hand; and afterwards he got down to water the horses,
while the driver was busied with other matters. This driver was
a little, dark ragamuffin, apparently of irascible temper,
speaking with great disapprobation of his way-bill not being
timed accurately, but so as to make it appear as if he were
longer upon the road than he was. As he spoke, the blood
darkened in his cheek, and his eye looked ominous and angry, as
if he were enraged with the person to whom he was speaking; yet
he had not real grit, for he had never said a word of his
grievances to those concerned. "I mean to tell them of it
by and by. I won't bear it more than three or four times
more," said he.

Left Northampton
the next morning, between one and two o'clock. Three other
passengers, whose faceswere not visible for some hours; so we went
on through unknown space, saying nothing, glancing forth
sometimes to see the gleam of the lanterns on wayside
objects.

How very desolate
looks a forest when seen in this way,--as if, should you venture
one step within its wild, tangled, many-stemmed, and
dark-shadowed verge, you would inevitably be lost forever.
Sometimes we passed a house, or rumbled through a village,
stopping perhaps to arouse some drowsy postmaster, who appeared
at the door in shirt and pantaloons, yawning, received the mail,
returned it again, and was yawning when last seen. A few words
exchanged among the passengers, as they roused themselves from
their half-slumbers, or dreamy, slumber-like abstraction.
Meantime dawn broke, our faces became partially visible, the
morning air grew colder, and finally cloudy day came on. We
found ourselves driving through quite a romantic country, with
hills or mountains on all sides, a stream on one side, bordered
by a high, precipitous bank, up which would have grown pines,
only that, losing their footholds, many of them had slipped
downward. The road was not the safest in the world; for often
the carriage approached within two or three feet of a precipice;
but the driver, a merry fellow, lolled on his box, with his feet
protruding horizontally, and rattled on at the rate of ten miles
an hour. Breakfast between four and five,--newly caught trout,
salmon, ham, boiled eggs, and other niceties,--truly excellent.
A bunch of pickerel, intended for a tavern-keeper farther on, was
carried by the stage-driver. The drivers carry a
"time-watch" enclosed in a small wooden case, with a
lock, so that it may be known in what time theyperform their stages. They are
allowed so many hours and minutes to do their work, and their
desire to go as fast as possible, combined with that of keeping
their horses in good order, produces about a right medium.

One of the
passengers was a young man who had been in Pennsylvania, keeping
a school,--a genteel enough young man, but not a gentleman. He
took neither supper nor breakfast, excusing himself from one as
being weary with riding all day, and from the other because it
was so early. He attacked me for a subscription for
"building up a destitute church," of which he had taken
an agency, and had collected two or three hundred dollars, but
wanted as many thousands. Betimes in the morning, on the descent
of a mountain, we arrived at a house where dwelt the married
sister of the young man, whom he was going to visit.

He alighted, saw
his trunk taken off, and then, having perceived his sister at the
door, and turning to bid us farewell, there was a broad smile,
even a laugh of pleasure, which did him more credit with me than
anything else; for hitherto there had been a disagreeable
scornful twist upon his face, perhaps, however, merely
superficial. I saw, as the stage drove off, his comely sister
approaching with a lighted-up face to greet him, and one
passenger on the front seat beheld them meet. "Is it an
affectionate greeting?" inquired I. "Yes," said
he, "I should like to share it"; whereby I concluded
that there was a kiss exchanged.

The highest point
of our journey was at Windsor, where we could see leagues around
over the mountain, a terribly bare, bleak spot, fit for nothing
but sheep, and without shelter of woods. We rattled downwardinto a warmer
region, beholding as we went the sun shining on portions of the
landscape, miles ahead of us, while we were yet in chillness and
gloom. It is probable that during a part of the stage the mists
around us looked like sky clouds to those in the lower regions.
Think of driving a stagecoach through the clouds! Seasonably in
the forenoon we arrived at Pittsfield.

Pittsfield is a
large village, quite shut in by mountain walls, generally
extending like a rampart on all sides of it, but with insulated
great hills rising here and there in the outline. The area of
the town is level; its houses are handsome, mostly wooden and
white; but some are of brick, painted deep red, the bricks being
not of a healthy, natural color. There are handsome churches,
Gothic and others, and a courthouse and an academy; the
court-house having a marble front. There is a small mall in the
centre of the town, and in the centre of the mall rises an elm of
the loftiest and straightest stem that ever I beheld, without a
branch or leaf upon it till it has soared seventy or perhaps a
hundred feet into the air. The top branches unfortunately have
been shattered somehow or other, so that it does not cast a broad
shade; probably they were broken by their own ponderous foliage.
The central square of Pittsfield presents all the bustle of a
thriving village,--the farmers of the vicinity in light wagons,
sulkies, or on horseback; stages at the door of the Berkshire
Hotel, under the stoop of which sit or lounge the guests,
stage-people, and idlers, observing or assisting in the arrivals
and departures. Huge trunks and bandboxes unladed and laded.
The courtesy shown to ladies in aiding them to alight, in a
shower, under umbrellas. The dulllooks of passengers, who have driven all
night, scarcely brightened by the excitement of arriving at a new
place. The stage agent demanding the names of those who are
going on,--some to Lebanon Springs, some to Albany. The
toddy-stick is still busy at these Berkshire public-houses. At
dinner soup preliminary, in city style. Guests: the court
people; Briggs, member of Congress, attending a trial here;
horse-dealers, country squires, store-keepers in the village,
etc. My room, a narrow crib overlooking a back court-yard, where
a young man and a lad were drawing water for the
maid-servants,--their jokes, especially those of the lad, of
whose wit the elder fellow, being a blockhead himself, was in
great admiration, and declared to another that he knew as much as
them both. Yet he was not very witty. Once in a while the
maid-servants would come to the door, and hear and respond to
their jokes, with a kind of restraint, yet both permitting and
enjoying them.

After or about
sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling round and
round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from rampart
to rampart. When it abated, the clouds in all parts of the
visible heavens were tinged with glory from the west; some that
hung low being purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray.
The slender curve of the new moon was also visible, brightening
amidst the fading brightness of the sunny part of the sky. There
are marble-quarries in and near Pittsfield, which accounts for
the fact that there are none but marble gravestones in the
burial-grounds; some of the monuments well carved; but the marble
does not withstand the wear and tear of time and weather so well
as the imported marble, and the sculpture soon loses its sharp
outline. Thedoor
of one tomb, a wooden door, opening in the side of a green mound,
surmounted by a marble obelisk, having been shaken from its
hinges by the late explosion of the powder-house, and
incompletely repaired, I peeped in at the crevices, and saw the
coffins. It was the tomb of Rev. Thomas Allen, first minister
of Pittsfield, deceased in 1810. It contained three coffins, all
with white mould on their tops: one, a small child's, rested
upon another, and the other was on the opposite side of the tomb,
and the lid was considerably displaced.; but the tomb being dark,
I could see neither corpse nor skeleton.

Marble also
occurs here in North Adams, and thus some very ordinary houses
have marble doorsteps, and even the stone walls are built of
fragments of marble.

Wednesday,
26th.--Left Pittsfield at about eight o'clock in the
Bennington stage, intending to go to Williamstown. Inside
passengers,--a new-married couple taking a jaunt. The lady, with
a clear, pale complexion, and a rather pensive cast of
countenance, slender, and with a genteel figure; the bridegroom,
a shopkeeper in New York probably, a young man with a stout black
beard, black eyebrows, which formed one line across his forehead.
They were very loving; and while the stage stopped, I watched
them, quite entranced in each other, both leaning sideways
against the back of the coach, and perusing their mutual
comeliness, and apparently making complimentary observations upon
it to one another. The bride appeared the most absorbed and
devoted, referring her whole being to him. The gentleman seemed
in a most paradisiacal mood, smiling ineffably upon his bride,
and, when she spoke, responding to her with a benign expression
ofmatrimonial
sweetness, and, as it were, compassion for the "weaker
vessel," mingled with great love and pleasant humor. It was
very droll. The driver peeped into the coach once, and said that
he had his arm round her waist. He took little freedoms with
her, tapping her with his cane,--love-pats; and she seemed to see
nothing amiss. They kept eating gingerbread all along the road,
and dined heartily notwithstanding.

Our driver was a
slender, lathe-like, round-backed, rough-bearded, thin-visaged,
middle-aged Yankee, who became very communicative during our
drive. He was not bred a stage-driver, but had undertaken the
business temporarily, as a favor to his brother-in-law. He was a
native of these Berkshire mountains, but had formerly emigrated
to Ohio, and had returned for a time to try the benefit of her
native air on his wife's declining health,--she having
complaints of a consumptive nature. He pointed out the house
where he was married to her, and told the name of the country
squire who tied the knot. His wife has little or no chance of
recovery, and he said he would never marry again,--this
resolution being expressed in answer to a remark of mine relative
to a second marriage. He has no children. I pointed to a hill
at some distance before us, and asked what it was. "That,
sir," said he, "is a very high hill. It is known by
the name of Graylock." He seemed to feel that this was a
more poetical epithet than Saddleback, which is a more usual name
for it. Graylock, or Saddleback, is quite a respectable
mountain; and I suppose the former name has been given to it
because it often has a gray cloud, or lock of gray mist, upon its
head. It does not ascend into a peak, but heaves up a round
ball,and has
supporting ridges on each side. Its summit is not bare, like
that of Mount Washington, but covered with forests. The driver
said, that several years since the students of Williams College
erected a building for an observatory on the top of the mountain,
and employed him to haul the materials for constructing it; and
he was the only man who had driven an ox-team up Graylock. It
was necessary to drive the team round and round, in ascending.
President Griffin rode up on horseback.

Along our road we
passed villages, and often factories, the machinery whirring, and
girls looking out of the windows at the stage, with heads averted
from their tasks, but still busy. These factories have two,
three, or more boarding-houses near them, two stories high, and
of double length,--often with bean-vines running up round the
doors, and with altogether a domestic look. There are several
factories in different parts of North Adams, along the banks of a
stream,--a wild, highland rivulet, which, however, does vast work
of a civilized nature. It is strange to see such a rough and
untamed stream as it looks to be so subdued to the purposes of
man, and making cottons and woollens, sawing boards and marbles,
and giving employment to so many men and girls. And there is a
sort of picturesqueness in finding these factories, supremely
artificial establishments, in the midst of such wild scenery.
For now the stream will be flowing through a rude forest, with
the trees erect and dark, as when the Indians fished there; and
it brawls and tumbles and eddies over its rock-strewn current.
Perhaps there is a precipice, hundreds of feet high, beside it,
down which, by heavy rains, or the melting of snows, great
pine-trees have slid or fallen headlong, and lie at thebottom, or half-way
down, while their brethren seem to be gazing at their fall from
the summit, and anticipating a like fate. And then, taking a
turn in the road, behold these factories and their range of
boarding-houses, with the girls looking out of the windows, as
aforesaid! And perhaps the wild scenery is all around the very
site of the factory, and mingles its impression strangely with
those opposite ones. These observations were made during a walk
yesterday.

I bathed in a
pool of the stream that was out of sight, and where its brawling
waters were deep enough to cover me, when I lay at length. A
part of the road along which I walked was on the edge of a
precipice, falling down straight towards the stream; and in one
place the passage of heavy loads had sunk it, so that soon,
probably, there will be an avalanche, perhaps carrying a
stage-coach or heavy wagon down into the bed of the river.

I met occasional
wayfarers; once two women in a cart,--decent, brown-visaged,
country matrons,--and then an apparent doctor, of whom there are
seven or thereabouts in North Adams; for though this vicinity is
very healthy, yet the physicians are obliged to ride considerable
distances among the mountain towns, and their practice is very
laborious. A nod is always exchanged between strangers meeting
on the road. This morning an underwitted old man met me on a
walk, and held a pretty long conversation, insisting upon shaking
hands (to which I was averse, lest his hand should not be clean),
and insisting on his right to do so, as being "a friend of
mankind." He was a gray, bald-headed, wrinkled-visaged
figure, decently dressed, with cowhide shoes, a coat on one arm,
and an umbrella on the other, and said that he wasgoing to see a widow in the
neighborhood. Finding that I was not provided with a wife, he
recommended a certain maiden of forty years, who had three
hundred acres of land. He spoke of his children, who are
proprietors of a circus establishment, and have taken a
granddaughter to bring up in their way of life; and he gave me a
message to tell them in case we should meet. While this old man
is wandering among the hills, his children are the gaze of
multitudes. He told me the place where he was born, directing me
to it by pointing to a wreath of mist which lay on the side of a
mountain ridge, which he termed "the smoke yonder."
Speaking of the widow, he said: "My wife has been dead these
seven years, and why should I not enjoy myself a little?"
His manner was full of quirks and quips and eccentricities,
waving his umbrella, and gesticulating strangely, with a great
deal of action. I suppose, to help his natural foolishness, he
had been drinking. We parted, he exhorting me not to forget his
message to his sons, and I shouting after him a request to be
remembered to the widow. Conceive something tragical to be
talked about, and much might be made of this interview in a wild
road among the hills, with Graylock, at a great distance, looking
sombre and angry, by reason of the gray, heavy mist upon his
head.

The morning was
cloudy, and all the near landscape lay unsunned; but there was
sunshine on distant tracts, in the valleys, and in specks upon
the mountain-tops. Between the ridges of hills there are long,
wide, deep valleys, extending for miles and miles, with houses
scattered along them. A bulky company of mountains, swelling
round head over round head, rises insulated by such broad vales
from the surrounding ridges.

I ought to have
mentioned that I arrived at North Adams in the forenoon of the
26th, and, liking the aspect of matters indifferently well,
determined to make my headquarters here for a short time.

On the road to
Northampton, we passed a tame crow, which was sitting on the peak
of a barn. The crow flew down from its perch, and followed us a
great distance, hopping along the road, and flying with its
large, black, flapping wings, from post to post of the fence, or
from tree to tree. At last he gave up the pursuit with a croak
of disappointment. The driver said, perhaps correctly, that the
crow had scented some salmon which was in a basket under the
seat, and that this was the secret of his pursuing us. This
would be a terrific incident if it were a dead body that the crow
scented, instead of a basket of salmon. Suppose, for instance,
in a coach travelling along, that one of the passengers suddenly
should die, and that one of the indications of his death would be
this deportment of the crow.

July
29th.--Remarkable characters:--A disagreeable figure,
waning from middle age, clad in a pair of tow homespun
pantaloons, and a very soiled shirt, barefoot, and with one of
his feet maimed by an axe; also an arm amputated two or three
inches below the elbow. His beard of a week's growth, grim
and grisly, with a general effect of black; altogether a
disgusting object. Yet he has the signs of having been a
handsome man in his idea, though now such a beastly figure that
probably no living thing but his great dog would touch him
without an effort. Coming to the stoop, where several persons
were sitting, "Good morning, gentlemen," said the
wretch. Nobodyanswered for a time, till at last one said,
"I don't know whom you speak to: not to me, I'm
sure" (meaning that he did not claim to be a gentleman).
"Why I thought I spoke to you all at once," replied the
figure, laughing. So he sat himself down on the lower step of
the stoop, and began to talk; and, the conversation being turned
upon his bare feet by one of the company, he related the story of
his losing his toes by the glancing aside of an axe, and with
what great fortitude he bore it. Then he made a transition to
the loss of his arm, and, setting his teeth and drawing in his
breath, said that the pain was dreadful; but this, too, he seems
to have borne like an Indian; and a person testified to his
fortitude by saying that he did not suppose there was any feeling
in him, from observing how he bore it. The man spoke of the pain
of cutting the muscles, and the particular agony at one moment,
while the bone was being sawed asunder; and there was a strange
expression of remembered anguish, as he shrugged his half-limb,
and described the matter. Afterwards, in a reply to a question
of mine, whether he still seemed to feel the hand that had been
amputated, he answered that he did always; and, baring the stump,
he moved the severed muscles, saying, "There is the thumb,
there the forefinger," and so on. Then he talked to me
about phrenology, of which he seems a firm believer and skilful
practitioner, telling how he had hit upon the true character of
many people. There was a great deal of sense and acuteness in
his talk, and something of elevation in his expressions,--perhaps
a studied elevation, and a sort of courtesy in his manner; but
his sense had something out of the way in it; there was something
wild and ruined and desperate in his talk, though I can hardlysay what it was.
There was a trace of the gentleman and man of intellect through
his deep degradation; and a pleasure in intellectual pursuits,
and an acuteness and trained judgment, which bespoke a mind once
strong and cultivated. "My study is man," said he.
And, looking at me, "I do not know your name," he said,
"but there is something of the hawk-eye about you,
too."

This man was
formerly a lawyer in good practice; but, taking to drinking, was
reduced to the lowest state. Yet not the lowest; for after the
amputation of his arm, being advised by divers persons to throw
himself upon the public for support, he told them that, even if
he should lose his other arm, he would still be able to support
himself and a servant. Certainly he is a strong-minded and
iron-constitutioned man; but, looking at the stump of his arm, he
said that the pain of the mind was a thousand times greater than
the pain of the body. "That hand could make the pen go
fast," said he. Among people in general, he does not seem
to have any greater consideration in his ruin because of his
former standing in society. He supports himself by making soap;
and, on account of the offals used in that business, there is
probably rather an evil odor in his domicile. Talking about a
dead horse near his house, he said that he could not bear the
scent of it. "I should not think you could smell carrion in
that house," said a stage agent. Whereupon the
soap-maker dropped his head, with a little snort, as it were, of
wounded feeling; but immediately said that he took all in good
part. There was an old squire of the village, a lawyer probably,
whose demeanor was different,--with a distance, yet with a
kindliness; for he remembered the times when theymet on equal terms. "You
and I," said the squire, alluding to their respective
troubles and sicknesses, "would have died long ago, if we
had not had the courage to live." The poor devil kept
talking to me long after everybody else had left the stoop,
giving vent to much practical philosophy, and just observation on
the ways of men, mingled with rather more assumption of
literature and cultivation than belonged to the present condition
of his mind. Meantime his great dog, a cleanly looking and not
ill-bred dog, being the only decent attribute appertaining to his
master,--a well-natured dog, too, and receiving civilly any
demonstration of courtesy from other people, though preserving a
certain distance of deportment,--this great dog grew weary of his
master's lengthy talk, and expressed his impatience to be
gone by thrusting himself between his legs, rolling over on his
back, seizing his ragged trousers, or playfully taking his
maimed, bare foot into his mouth,--using, in short, the kindly
and humorous freedom of a friend, with a wretch to whom all are
free enough, but none other kind. His master rebuked him, but
with kindness too, and not so that the dog felt himself bound to
desist, though he seemed willing to allow his master all the time
that could possibly be spared. And at last, having said many
times that he must go and shave and dress himself,--and as his
beard had been at least a week growing, it might have seemed
almost a week's work to get rid of it,--he rose from the
stoop and went his way,--a forlorn and miserable thing in the
light of the cheerful summer morning. Yet he seems to keep his
spirits up, and still preserves himself a man among men, asking
nothing from them; nor is it clearly perceptible what right they
have to scorn him, though he seems to acquiesce, in a manner, in
their doing so. And yet he cannot wholly have lost his
self-respect; and doubtless there were persons on the stoop more
grovelling than himself.

Another
character:--A blacksmith of fifty or upwards, a corpulent figure,
big in the paunch and enormous in the rear; yet there is such an
appearance of strength and robustness in his frame, that his
corpulence appears very proper and necessary to him. A pound of
flesh could not be spared from his abundance, any more than from
the leanest man; and he walks about briskly, without any panting
or symptom of labor or pain in his motion. He has a round, jolly
face, always mirthful and humorous and shrewd, and the air of a
man well to do, and well respected, yet not caring much about the
opinions of men, because his independence is sufficient to
itself. Nobody would take him for other than a man of some
importance in the community, though his summer dress is a
tow-cloth pair of pantaloons, a shirt not of the cleanest, open
at the breast, and the sleeves rolled up at the elbows, and a
straw hat. There is not such a vast difference between this
costume and that of Lawyer H---- above mentioned, yet never was
there a greater diversity of appearance than between these two
men; and a glance at them would be sufficient to mark the
difference. The blacksmith loves his glass, and comes to the
tavern for it, whenever it seems good to him, not calling for it
slyly and shyly, but marching steadily to the bar, or calling
across the room for it to be prepared. He speaks with great
bitterness against the new license law, and vows if it be not
repealed by fair means it shall be by violence, and that he will
be as ready to cock his rifle for such a cause as for anyother. On this
subject his talk is really fierce; but as to all other matters he
is good-natured and good-hearted, fond of joke, and shaking his
jolly sides with frequent laughter. His conversation has much
strong, unlettered sense, imbued with humor, as everybody's
talk is in New England.

He takes a queer
position sometimes,--queer for his figure
particularly,--straddling across a chair, facing the back, with
his arms resting thereon, and his chin on them, for the benefit
of conversing closely with some one. When he has spent as much
time in the bar-room or under the stoop as he chooses to spare,
he gets up at once, and goes off with a brisk, vigorous pace. He
owns a mill, and seems to be prosperous in the world. I know no
man who seems more like a man, more indescribably human, than
this sturdy blacksmith.

There came in the
afternoon a respectable man in gray homespun cloth, who arrived
in a wagon, I believe, and began to inquire, after supper, about
a certain new kind of mill machinery. Being referred to the
blacksmith, who owned one of these mills, the stranger said that
he had come from Vermont to learn about the matter. "What
may I call your name?" said he to the blacksmith. "My
name is Hodge," replied the latter. "I believe I have
heard of you," said the stranger. Then they colloquied at
much length about the various peculiarities and merits of the new
invention. The stranger continued here two or three days, making
his researches, and forming acquaintance with several millwrights
and others. He was a man evidently of influence in his
neighborhood, and the tone of his conversation was in the style
of one accustomed to be heard with deference, though allin a plain and
homely way. Lawyer H---- took notice of this manner; for the
talk being about the nature of soap, and the evil odor arising
from that process, the stranger joined in. "There need not
be any disagreeable smell in making soap," said he.
"Now we are to receive a lesson," said H----, and the
remark was particularly apropos to the large wisdom of the
stranger's tone and air.

Then he gave an
account of the process in his domestic establishment, saying that
he threw away the whole offals of the hog, as not producing any
soap, and preserved the skins of the intestines for sausages. He
seemed to be hospitable, inviting those with whom he did business
to take "a mouthful of dinner" with him, and treating
them with liquors; for he was not an utter temperance man, though
moderate in his potations. I suspect he would turn out a pattern
character of the upper class of New England yeomen, if I had an
opportunity of studying him. Doubtless he had been selectman,
representative, and justice, and had filled all but weighty
offices. He was highly pleased with the new mill contrivance,
and expressed his opinion that, when his neighbors saw the
success of his, it would be extensively introduced into that
vicinity.

Mem. The
hostlers at taverns call the money given them
"pergasus,"--corrupted from "perquisites."
Otherwise "knock-down money."

Remarkable
character:--A travelling surgeon-dentist, who has taken a room in
the North Adams House, and sticks up his advertising bills on the
pillars of the piazza, and all about the town. He is a tall,
slim young man, six feet two, dressed in a country-made coat of
light blue (taken, as he tells me, in exchange for dental
operations), black pantaloons, and clumsy,cowhide boots. Self-conceit is
very strongly expressed in his air; and a doctor once told him
that he owed his life to that quality; for, by keeping himself so
stiffly upright, he opens his chest, and counteracts a
consumptive tendency. He is not only a dentist, which trade he
follows temporarily, but a licensed preacher of the Baptist
persuasion, and is now on his way to the West to seek a place of
settlement in his spiritual vocation. Whatever education he
possesses, he has acquired by his own exertions since the age of
twenty-one,--he being now twenty-four. We talk together very
freely; and he has given me an account, among other matters, of
all his love-affairs, which are rather curious, as illustrative
of the life of a smart young country fellow in relation to the
gentle sex. Nothing can exceed the exquisite self-conceit which
characterizes these confidences, and which is expressed
inimitably in his face, his upturned nose, and mouth, so as to be
truly a caricature; and he seems strangely to find as much food
for his passion in having been jilted once or twice as in his
conquests. It is curious to notice his revengeful feeling
against the false ones,--hidden from himself, however, under the
guise of religious interest, and desire that they may be cured of
their follies.

A little boy
named Joe, who haunts about the bar-room and the stoop, four
years old, in a thin, short jacket, and full-breeched trousers,
and bare feet. The men tease him, and put quids of tobacco in
his mouth, under pretence of giving him a fig; and he gets
enraged, and utters a peculiar, sharp, spiteful cry, and strikes
at them with a stick, to their great mirth. He is always in
trouble, yet will not keep away. They despatch him with two or
three cents to buy candyand nuts and raisins. They set him down in a
niche of the door, and tell him to remain there a day and a half:
he sits down very demurely, as if he meant to fulfil his penance;
but a moment after, behold! there is little Joe capering across
the street to join two or three boys who are playing in a wagon.
Take this boy as the germ of a tavern-haunter, a country
roué, to spend a wild and brutal youth, ten
years of his prime in the State Prison, and his old age in the
poor-house.

There are a great
many dogs kept in the village, and many of the travellers also
have dogs. Some are almost always playing about; and if a cow or
a pig be passing, two or three of them scamper forth for an
attack. Some of the younger sort chase pigeons, wheeling as they
wheel. If a contest arises between two dogs, a number of others
come with huge barking to join the fray, though I believe that
they do not really take any active part in the contest, but swell
the uproar by way of encouraging the combatants. When a
traveller is starting from the door, his dog often gets in front
of the horse, placing his forefeet down, looking the horse in the
face, and barking loudly; then, as the horse comes on, running a
little farther, and repeating the process; and this he does in
spite of his master's remonstrances, till, the horse being
fairly started, the dog follows on quietly. One dog, a
diminutive little beast, has been taught to stand on his hind
legs, and rub his face with his paw, which he does with an aspect
of much endurance and deprecation. Another springs at people
whom his master points out to him, barking and pretending to
bite. These tricks make much mirth in the bar-room. All dogs,
of whatever different sizes and dissimilarvarieties, acknowledge the common
bond of species among themselves, and the largest one does not
disdain to suffer his tail to be smelt of, nor to reciprocate
that courtesy to the smallest. They appear to take much interest
in one another; but there is always a degree of caution between
two strange dogs when they meet.

July
3lst.--A visit to what is called "Hudson's
Cave," or "Hudson's Falls," the tradition
being that a man by the name of Henry Hudson, many years ago,
chasing a deer, the deer fell over the place, which then first
became known to white men. It is not properly a cave, but a
fissure in a huge ledge of marble, through which a stream has
been for ages forcing its way, and has left marks of its
gradually wearing power on the tall crags, having made curious
hollows from the summit down to the level which it has reached at
the present day. The depth of the fissure in some places is at
least fifty or sixty feet; perhaps more, and at several points it
nearly closes over, and often the sight of the sky is hidden by
the interposition of masses of the marble crags. The fissure is
very irregular, so as not to be describable in words, and
scarcely to be painted,--jutting buttresses, moss-grown,
impending crags, with tall trees growing on their verge, nodding
over the head of the observer at the bottom of the chasm, and
rooted, as it were, in air. The part where the water works its
way down is very narrow; but the chasm widens, after the descent,
so as to form a spacious chamber between the crags, open to the
sky, and its floor is strewn with fallen fragments of marble, and
trees that have been precipitated long ago, and are heaped with
drift-wood, left there by the freshets, when the scanty stream
becomes a considerablewaterfall. One crag, with a narrow ridge,
which might be climbed without much difficulty, protrudes from
the middle of the rock, and divides the fall. The passage
through the cave made by the stream is very crooked, and
interrupted, not only by fallen wrecks, but by deep pools of
water, which probably have been forded by few. As the deepest
pool occurs in the most uneven part of the chasm, where the
hollows in the sides of the crag are deepest, so that each hollow
is almost a cave by itself, I determined to wade through it.
There was an accumulation of soft stuff on the bottom, so that
the water did not look more than knee-deep; but, finding that my
feet sunk in it, I took off my trousers, and waded through up to
my middle. Thus I reached the most interesting part of the cave,
where the whirlings of the stream had left the marks of its
eddies in the solid marble, all up and down the two sides of the
chasm. The water is now dammed for the construction of two
marble saw-mills, else it would have been impossible to effect
the passage; and I presume that, for years after the cave was
discovered, the waters roared and tore their way in a torrent
through this part of the chasm. While I was there, I heard
voices, and a small stone tumbled down; and looking up towards
the narrow strip of bright light, and the sunny verdure that
peeped over the top,--looking up thither from the deep, gloomy
depth,--I saw two or three men; and, not liking to be to them the
most curious part of the spectacle, I waded back, and put on my
clothes. The marble crags are overspread with a concretion,
which makes them look as gray as granite, except where the
continual flow of water keeps them of a snowy whiteness. If they
were so white all over, it would be a splendidshow. There is a marble-quarry
close in the rear, above the cave, and in process of time the
whole of the crags will be quarried into tombstones, doorsteps,
fronts of edifices, fireplaces, etc. That will be a pity. On
such portions of the walls as are within reach, visitors have
sculptured their initials, or names at full length; and the white
letters showing plainly on the gray surface, they have more
obvious effect than such inscriptions generally have. There was
formerly, I believe, a complete arch of marble, forming a natural
bridge over the top of the cave; but this is no longer so. At
the bottom of the broad chamber of the cave, standing in its
shadow, the effect of the morning sunshine on the dark or bright
foliage of the pines and other trees that cluster on the summits
of the crags was particularly beautiful; and it was strange how
such great trees had rooted themselves in solid marble, for so it
seemed.

After passing
through this romantic and most picturesque spot, the stream goes
onward to turn factories. Here its voice resounds within the
hollow crags; there it goes onward, talking to itself, with
babbling din, of its own wild thoughts and fantasies,--the voice
of solitude and the wilderness,--loud and continual, but which
yet does not seem to disturb the thoughtful wanderer, so that he
forgets there is a noise. It talks along its storm-strewn path;
it talks beneath tall precipices and high banks,--a voice that
has been the same for innumerable ages; and yet, if you listen,
you will perceive a continual change and variety in its babble,
and sometimes it seems to swell louder upon the ear than at
others,--in the same spot, I mean. By and by man makes a dam for
it, and it pours over it, still making its voice heard, while it
labors. Atone
shop for manufacturing the marble, I saw the disk of a sundial as
large as the top of a hogshead, intended for Williams College;
also a small obelisk, and numerous gravestones. The marble is
coarse-grained, but of a very brilliant whiteness. It is rather
a pity that the cave is not formed of some worthless stone.

In the deep
valleys of the neighborhood, where the shadows at sunset are
thrown from mountain to mountain, the clouds have a beautiful
effect, flitting high over them, bright with heavenly gold. It
seems as if the soul might rise up from the gloom, and alight
upon them and soar away. Walking along one of the valleys the
other evening, while a pretty fresh breeze blew across it, the
clouds that were skimming over my head seemed to conform
themselves to the valley's shape.

At a distance,
mountain summits look close together, almost as if forming one
mountain, though in reality a village lies in the depths between
them.

A steam-engine in
a factory to be supposed to possess a malignant spirit. It
catches one man's arm, and pulls it off; seizes another by
the coat-tails, and almost grapples him bodily; catches a girl by
the hair, and scalps her; and finally draws in a man and crushes
him to death.

The one-armed
soap-maker, Lawyer H----, wears an iron hook, which serves him
instead of a hand for the purpose of holding on. They nickname
him "Black Hawk."

North Adams
still.--The village, viewed from the top of a hill to the
westward at sunset, has a peculiarly happy and peaceful look. It
lies on a level, surrounded by hills, and seems as if it lay in
the hollowof a
large hand. The Union Village may be seen, a manufacturing
place, extending up a gorge of the hills. It is amusing to see
all the distributed property of the aristocracy and commonalty,
the various and conflicting interests of the town, the loves and
hates, compressed into a space which the eye takes in as
completely as the arrangement of a tea-table. The rush of the
streams comes up the hill somewhat like the sound of a city.

The hills about
the village appear very high and steep sometimes, when the
shadows of the clouds are thrown blackly upon them, while there
is sunshine elsewhere; so that, seen in front, the effect of
their gradual slope is lost. These hills, surrounding the town
on all sides, give it a snug and insulated air; and, viewed from
certain points, it would be difficult to tell how to get out,
without climbing the mountain ridges; but the roads wind away and
accomplish the passage without ascending very high. Sometimes
the notes of a horn or bugle may be heard sounding afar among
these passes of the mountains, announcing the coming of the
stage-coach from Bennington or Troy or Greenfield or
Pittsfield.

There are
multitudes of sheep among the hills, and they appear very tame
and gentle; though sometimes, like the wicked, they "flee
when no man pursueth." But, climbing a rude, rough, rocky,
stumpy, ferny height yesterday, one or two of them stood and
stared at me with great earnestness. I passed on quietly, but
soon heard an immense baa-ing up the hill, and all the sheep came
galloping and scrambling after me, baa-ing with all their might
in innumerable voices, running in a compact body, expressing the
utmost eagerness, as if they sought the greatest imaginablefavor from me; and
so they accompanied me down the hill-side,--a most ridiculous
cortége. Doubtless they had taken it into
their heads that I brought them salt.

The aspect of the
village is peculiarly beautiful towards sunset, when there are
masses of cloud about the sky,--the remnants of a thunder-storm.
These clouds throw a shade upon large portions of the rampart of
hills, and the hills towards the west are shaded of course; the
clouds also make the shades deeper in the village, and thus the
sunshine on the houses and trees, and along the street, is a
bright, rich gold. The green is deeper in consequence of the
recent rain.

The doctors walk
about the village with their saddle-bags on their arms, one
always with a pipe in his mouth.

A little dog,
named Snapper, the same who stands on his hind legs, appears to
be a roguish little dog, and the other day he stole one of the
servant-girl's shoes, and ran into the street with it.
Being pursued, he would lift the shoe in his mouth (while it
almost dragged on the ground), and run a little way, then lie
down with his paws on it and wait to be pursued again.

August
11th.--This morning, it being cloudy and boding of rain,
the clouds had settled upon the mountains, both on the summits
and ridges, all round the town, so that there seemed to be no way
of gaining access to the rest of the world, unless by climbing
above the clouds. By and by they partially dispersed, giving
glimpses of the mountain ramparts through their obscurity, the
separate clouds lying heavily upon the mountain's breast.
In warm mornings, after rain, the mist breaks forth from the
forests on the ascent ofthe mountains, like smoke,--the smoke of a
volcano; then it soars up, and becomes a cloud in heaven. But
these clouds to-day were real rain-clouds. Sometimes, it is
said, while laboring up the mountain-side, they suddenly burst,
and pour down their moisture in a cataract, sweeping all before
it.

Every new aspect
of the mountains, or view from a different position, creates a
surprise in the mind.

Scenes and
characters--A young country fellow, twenty or thereabouts,
decently dressed, pained with the toothache. A doctor, passing
on horseback, with his black leather saddle-bags behind him, a
thin, frosty-haired man. Being asked to operate, he looks at the
tooth, lances the gum, and the fellow being content to be dealt
with on the spot, he seats himself in a chair on the stoop with
great heroism. The doctor produces a rusty pair of iron forceps;
a man holds the patient's head; the doctor perceives that,
it being a difficult tooth to get at, wedged between the two
largest in his jaws, he must pull very hard; and the instrument
is introduced. A turn of the doctor's hand; the patient
begins to utter a cry, but the tooth comes out first, with four
prongs . The patient gets up, half amazed, pays the doctor
ninepence, pockets the tooth, and the spectators are in glee and
admiration.

There was a fat
woman, a stage-passenger to-day,--a wonder how she could possibly
get through the door, which seemed not so wide as she. When she
put her foot on the step, the stage gave a great lurch, she
joking all the while. A great, coarse, red-faced dame. Other
passengers,--three or four slender Williamstown students, a young
girl, and a man with one leg and two crutches.

One of the most
sensible men in this village is a plain, tall, elderly person,
who is overseeing the mending of a road,--humorous, intelligent,
with much thought about matters and things; and while at work he
has a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crowbar, which shows
him to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop,
silent and observant from under the brim of his hat; but,
occasion calling, he holds an argument about the benefit or
otherwise of manufactories or other things. A simplicity
characterizes him more than appertains to most Yankees.

A man in a
pea-green frock-coat, with velvet collar. Another in a flowered
chintz frock-coat. There is a great diversity of hues in
garments. A doctor, a stout, tall, round-paunched, red-faced,
brutal-looking old fellow, who gets drunk daily. He sat down on
the step of our stoop, looking surly, and speaking to nobody;
then got up and walked homeward, with a morose swagger and a
slight unevenness of gait, attended by a fine Newfoundland
dog.

A barouche with
driver returned from beyond Greenfield or Troy empty, the
passengers being left at the former place. The driver stops here
for the night, and, while washing, enters into talk with an old
man about the different roads over the mountain.

People washing
themselves at a common basin in the bar-room! and using the
common hair-brushes! perhaps with a consciousness of
praiseworthy neatness!

A man with a
cradle on his shoulder, having been cradling oats. I attended a
child's funeral yesterday afternoon. There was an
assemblage of people in a plain, homely apartment. Most of the
men were dressed in their ordinary clothes, and one or two were
in shirtsleeves. The coffin was placed in the midstof us, covered with
a velvet pall. A bepaid clergyman prayed (the audience remaining
seated, while he stood up at the head of the coffin), read a
passage of Scripture and commented upon it. While he read and
prayed and expounded there was a heavy thunderstorm rumbling
among the surrounding hills, and the lightning flashed fiercely
through the gloomy room; and the preacher alluded to GOD'S
voice of thunder.

It is the custom
in this part of the country--and perhaps extensively in the
interior of New England--to bury the dead first in a
charnel-house, or common tomb, where they remain till decay has
so far progressed as to secure them from the resurrectionists.
They are then reburied, with certain ceremonies, in their own
peculiar graves.

O. E. S----, a
widower of forty or upwards, with a son of twelve and a pair of
infant twins. He is a sharp, shrewd Yankee, with a Yankee's
license of honesty. He drinks sometimes more than enough, and is
guilty of peccadilloes with the fair sex; yet speaks most
affectionately of his wife, and is a fond and careful father. He
is a tall, thin, hard-featured man, with a sly expression of
almost hidden grave humor, as if there were some deviltry pretty
constantly in his mind,--which is probably the case. His brother
tells me that he was driven almost crazy by the loss of his wife.
It appears to me that men are more affected by the deaths of
their wives than wives by the deaths of their husbands. Orrin
S---- smokes a pipe, as do many of the guests.

A walk this
forenoon up the mountain ridge that walls in the town towards the
east. The road is cut zigzag, the mountain being generally as
steep as the roof of a house; yet the stage to Greenfield
passesover this
road two or three times a week. Graylock rose up behind me,
appearing, with its two summits and a long ridge between, like a
huge monster crouching down slumbering, with its head slightly
elevated. Graylock is properly the name for the highest
elevation. It appeared to better advantage the higher the point
from which I viewed it. There were houses scattered here and
there up the mountain-side, growing poorer as I ascended; the
last that I passed was a mean log-hut, rough, rude, and
dilapidated, with the smoke issuing from a chimney of small
stones, plastered with clay; around it a garden of beans, with
some attempt at flowers, and a green creeper running over the
side of the cottage. Above this point there were various
excellent views of mountain scenery, far off and near, and one
village lying below in the hollow vale.

Having climbed so
far that the road seemed now to go downward, I retraced my steps.
There was a wagon descending behind me; and as it followed the
zigzag of the road I could hear the voices of the men high over
my head, and sometimes I caught a glimpse of the wagon almost
perpendicularly above me, while I was looking almost
perpendicularly down to the log-hut aforementioned. Trees were
thick on either hand,--oaks, pines, and others; and marble
occasionally peeped up in the road; and there was a lime-kiln by
the wayside, ready for burning.

Graylock had a
cloud on his head this morning, the base of a heavy white cloud.
The distribution of the sunshine amid mountain scenery is very
striking; one does not see exactly why one spot should be in deep
obscurity while others are all bright. The clouds throw their
shadows upon the hill-sides as they move slowly along,--a
transitory blackness.

I passed a doctor
high up the road in a sulky, with his black leather
saddle-bags.

Hudson's
Cave is formed by Hudson's Brook. There is a natural arch
of marble still in one part of it. The cliffs are partly made
verdant with green moss, chiefly gray with oxidation; on some
parts the white of the marble is seen; in interstices grow brake
and other shrubs, so that there is naked sublimity seen through a
good deal of clustering beauty. Above, the birch, poplars, and
pines grow on the utmost verge of the cliffs, which jut far over,
so that they are suspended in air; and whenever the sunshine
finds its way into the depths of the chasm, the branches wave
across it. There is a lightness, however, about their foliage,
which greatly relieves what would otherwise be a gloomy scene.
After the passage of the stream through the cliffs of marble, the
cliffs separate on either side, and leave it to flow onward;
intercepting its passage, however, by fragments of marble, some
of them huge ones, which the cliffs have flung down, thundering
into the bed of the stream through numberless ages. Doubtless
some of these immense fragments had trees growing on them, which
have now mouldered away. Decaying trunks are heaped in various
parts of the gorge. The pieces of marble that are washed by the
water are of a snow-white, and partially covered with a bright
green water-moss, making a beautiful contrast.

Among the cliffs,
strips of earth-beach extend downward, and trees and large shrubs
root themselves in that earth, thus further contrasting the
nakedness of the stone with their green foliage. But the
immediate part where the stream forces its winding passage
through the rock is stern, dark, and mysterious.

Along the road,
where it runs beneath a steep, there are high ridges, covered
with trees,--the dew of midnight damping the earth, far towards
midnoon. I observed the shadows of water-insects, as they swam
in the pools of a stream. Looking down a streamlet, I saw a
trunk of a tree, which has been overthrown by the wind, so as to
form a bridge, yet sticking up all its branches, as if it were
unwilling to assist anybody over.

Green leaves,
following the eddies of the rivulet, were now borne deep under
water, and now emerged. Great uprooted trees, adhering midway
down a precipice of earth, hung with their tops downward.

There is an old
man, selling the meats of butternuts under the stoop of the
hotel. He makes that his station during a part of the season.
He was dressed in a dark thin coat, ribbed velvet pantaloons, and
a sort of moccasons, or shoes, appended to the legs of woollen
stockings. He had on a straw hat, and his hair was gray, with a
long, thin visage. His nuts were contained in a square tin box,
having two compartments, one for the nuts, and another for maple
sugar, which he sells in small cakes. He had three small tin
measures for nuts,--one at one cent, others at two, four, and six
cents; and as fast as they were emptied, he filled them again,
and put them on the top of his box. He smoked a pipe, and talked
with one man about whether it would be worth while to grow young
again, and the duty of being contented with old age; about
predestination and freewill and other metaphysics. I asked him
what his sales amounted to in the course of a day. He said that
butternuts did not sell so well as walnuts, which are not yet in
season; that he might to-day have sold fifty cents' worth;
of walnuts, neverless than a dollar's worth, often more;
and when he went round with a caravan, he had sold fifteen
dollars' worth per day, and once as much as twenty
dollars' worth. This promises to be an excellent year for
walnuts. Chestnuts have been scarce for two or three years. He
had one hundred chestnut-trees on his own land, and last year he
offered a man twenty-five cents if he would find him a quart of
good chestnuts on them. A bushel of walnuts would cost about ten
dollars. He wears a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles.

A drunken fellow
sat down by him, and bought a cent's worth of his
butternuts, and inquired what he would sell out to him for. The
old man made an estimate, though evidently in jest, and then
reckoned his box, measures, meats, and what little maple sugar he
had, at four dollars. He had a very quiet manner, and expressed
an intention of going to the Commencement at Williamstown
to-morrow; His name, I believe, is Captain Gavett.

Wednesday,
August 15th.--I went to Commencement at Williams
College,--five miles distant. At the tavern were students with
ribbons, pink or blue, fluttering from their buttonholes, these
being the badges of rival societies. There was a considerable
gathering of people, chiefly arriving in wagons or buggies, some
in barouches, and very few in chaises. The most characteristic
part of the scene was where the pedlars, gingerbread-sellers,
etc., were collected, a few hundred yards from the meeting-house.
There was a pedlar there from New York State, who sold his wares
by auction, and I could have stood and listened to him all day
long. Sometimes he would put up a heterogeny [note]

[note: This is a word made by Mr. Hawthorne, but
one that was needed.--S. H.]

ofarticles in a lot,--as a paper of pins, a
lead-pencil, and a shaving-box,--and knock them all down, perhaps
for ninepence. Bunches of lead-pencils, steel-pens, pound-cakes
of shaving-soap, gilt finger-rings, bracelets, clasps, and other
jewelry, cards of pearl buttons, or steel ("there is some
steel about them, gentlemen, for my brother stole 'em, and I
bore him out in it"), bundles of wooden combs, boxes of
matches, suspenders, and, in short, everything,--dipping his hand
down into his wares, with the promise of a wonderful lot, and
producing, perhaps, a bottle of opodeldoc, and joining it with a
lead-pencil,--and when he had sold several things of the same
kind, pretending huge surprise at finding "just one
more," if the lads lingered; saying, "I could not
afford to steal them for the price; for the remorse of conscience
would be worth more,"--all the time keeping an eye upon
those who bought, calling for the pay, making change with silver
or bills, and deciding on the goodness of banks; and saying to
the boys, who climbed upon his cart, "Fall down, roll down,
tumble down, only get down"; and uttering everything in the
queer, humorous recitative in which he sold his articles.
Sometimes he would pretend that a person had bid, either by word
or wink and raised a laugh thus; never losing his
self-possession, nor getting out of humor. When a man asked
whether a bill were good: "No! do you suppose I'd give
you good money?" When he delivered an article, he exclaimed,
"You're the lucky man," setting off his wares with
the most extravagant eulogies. The people bought very freely,
and seemed also to enjoy the fun. One little boy bought a
shaving-box, perhaps meaning to speculate upon it. This
character could not possibly be overdrawn; and he was reallyexcellent, with his
allusions to what was passing, intermingled, doubtless, with a
good deal that was studied. He was a man between thirty and
forty, with a face expressive of other ability, as well as of
humor.

A good many
people were the better or the worse for liquor. There was one
fellow,--named Randall, I think,--a round-shouldered, bulky,
ill-hung devil, with a pale, sallow skin, black beard, and a sort
of grin upon his face,--a species of laugh, yet not so much
mirthful as indicating a strange mental and moral twist. He was
very riotous in the crowd, elbowing, thrusting, seizing hold of
people; and at last a ring was formed, and a regular
wrestling-match commenced between him and a farmer-looking man.
Randall brandished his legs about in the most ridiculous style,
but proved himself a good wrestler, and finally threw his
antagonist. He got up with the same grin upon his features,--not
a grin of simplicity, but intimating knowingness. When more
depth or force of expression was required, he could put on the
most strangely ludicrous and ugly aspect (suiting his gesture and
attitude to it) that can be imagined. I should like to see this
fellow when he was perfectly sober.

There were a good
many blacks among the crowd. I suppose they used to emigrate
across the border, while New York was a slave State. There were
enough of them to form a party, though greatly in the minority;
and, a squabble arising, some of the blacks were knocked down,
and otherwise maltreated. I saw one old negro, a genuine
specimen of the slave negro, without any of the foppery of the
race in our part of the State,--an old fellow, with a bag, I
suppose, of broken victuals, on his shoulder, and his pockets
stuffed out at his hips with the like provender; full of grimaces
and ridiculous antics, laughing laughably, yet without
affectation; then talking with a strange kind of pathos about the
whippings he used to get while he was a slave;--a singular
creature, of mere feeling, with some glimmering of sense. Then
there was another gray old negro, but of a different stamp,
politic, sage, cautious, yet with boldness enough, talking about
the rights of his race, yet so as not to provoke his audience;
discoursing of the advantage of living under laws, and the
wonders that might ensue, in that very assemblage, if there were
no laws; in the midst of this deep wisdom, turning off the anger
of a half-drunken fellow by a merry retort, a leap in the air,
and a negro's laugh. I was interested--there being a
drunken negro ascending the meeting-house steps, and near him
three or four well-dressed and decent negro wenches--to see the
look of scorn and shame and sorrow and painful sympathy which one
of them assumed at this disgrace of her color.

The people here
show out their character much more strongly than they do with us;
there was not the quiet, silent, dull decency of our public
assemblages, but mirth, anger, eccentricity,--all manifesting
themselves freely. There were many watermelons for sale, and
people burying their muzzles deep in the juicy flesh of them.
There were cider and beer. Many of the people had their mouths
half opened in a grin, which, more than anything else, I think,
indicates a low stage of refinement. A low-crowned hat--very
low--is common. They are respectful to gentlemen.

A bat being
startled, probably, out of the meeting-house, by the commotion
around, flew blindly about inthe sunshine, and alighted on a man's
sleeve. I looked at him,--a droll, winged, beast-insect,
creeping up the man's arm, not over-clean, and scattering
dust on the man's coat from his vampire wings. The man
stared at him, and let the spectators stare for a minute, and
then shook him gently off; and the poor devil took a flight
across the green to the meeting-house, and then, I believe,
alighted on somebody else. Probably he was put to death. Bats
are very numerous in these parts.

There was a
drunken man, annoying people with his senseless talk and
impertinences, impelled to perform eccentricities by an evil
spirit in him; and a pale little boy, with a bandaged leg, whom
his father brought out of the tavern and put into a barouche.
Then the boy heedfully placed shawls and cushions about his leg
to support it, his face expressive of pain and care,--not
transitory, but settled pain, of long and forcedly patient
endurance; and this painful look, perhaps, gave his face more
intelligence than it might otherwise have had, though it was
naturally a sensitive face. Well-dressed ladies were in the
meeting-house in silks and cambrics,--the sunburnt necks in
contiguity with the delicate fabrics of the dresses showing the
yeoman's daughters.

Country
graduates,--rough, brown-featured, school-master-looking,
half-bumpkin, half-scholarly figures, in black ill-cut
broadcloth,--their manners quite spoilt by what little of the
gentleman there was in them.

The landlord of
the tavern keeping his eye on a man whom he suspected of an
intention to bolt. [note]

[note: A word meaning in Worcester, I find,
"to spring out with speed and suddenness."--S. H.]

The next day
after Commencement was bleak andrainy from midnight till midnight, and a good
many guests were added to our table in consequence. Among them
were some of the Williamstown students, gentlemanly young
fellows, with a brotherly feeling for each other, a freedom about
money concerns, a half-boyish, half-manly character; and my heart
warmed to them. They took their departure--two for South Adams
and two across the Green Mountains--in the midst of the rain.
There was one of the graduates with his betrothed, and his
brother-in-law and wife, who stayed during the day,--the graduate
the very model of a country schoolmaster in his Sunday clothes,
being his Commencement suit of black broadcloth and pumps. He is
engaged as assistant teacher of the academy at Shelburne Falls.
There was also the high sheriff of Berkshire, Mr. Twining, with
a bundle of writs under his arm, and some of them peeping out of
his pockets. Also several Trojan men and women, who had been to
Commencement. Likewise a young clergyman, graduate of Brown
College, and student of the Divinity School at Cambridge. He had
come across the Hoosic, or Green Mountains, about eighteen miles,
on foot, from Charlemont, where he is preaching, and had been to
Commencement. Knowing little of men and matters, and desiring to
know more, he was very free in making acquaintance with people,
but could not do it handsomely. A singular smile broke out upon
his face on slight provocation. He was awkward in his manners,
yet it was not an ungentlemanly awkwardness,--intelligent as
respects book-learning, but much deficient in worldly tact. It
was pleasant to observe his consciousness of this deficiency, and
how he strove to remedy it by mixing as much as possible with
people, and sitting almost all day in thebar-room to study character.
Sometimes he would endeavor to contribute his share to the
general amusement,--as by growling comically, to provoke and
mystify a dog; and by some bashful and half-apropos
observations.

In the afternoon
there came a fresh bevy of students onward from Williamstown; but
they made only a transient visit, though it was still raining.
These were a rough-hewn, heavy set of fellows, from the hills and
woods in this neighborhood,--great unpolished bumpkins, who had
grown up farmer-boys, and had little of the literary man, save
green spectacles and black broadcloth (which all of them had
not), talking with a broad accent, and laughing clown-like, while
sheepishness overspread all, together with a vanity at being
students. One of the party was six feet seven inches high, and
all his herculean dimensions were in proportion; his features,
too, were cast in a mould suitable to his stature. This giant
was not ill-looking, but of a rather intelligent aspect. His
motions were devoid of grace, but yet had a rough freedom,
appropriate enough to such a figure. These fellows stayed
awhile, talked uncouthly about college matters, and started in
the great open wagon which had brought them and their luggage
hither. We had a fire in the bar-room almost all day,--a great,
blazing fire,--and it was pleasant to have this day of bleak
November weather, and cheerful fireside talk, and wet garments
smoking in the fireside heat, still in the summer-time. Thus the
day wore on with a sort of heavy, lazy pleasantness; and night
set in, still stormy.

In the morning it
was cloudy, but did not rain, and I went with the little
clergyman to Hudson's Cave. The stream which they call
North Branch, and intowhich Hudson's Brook empties, was much
swollen, and tumbled and dashed and whitened over the rocks, and
formed real cascades over the dams, and rushed fast along the
side of the cliffs, which had their feet in it. Its color was
deep brown, owing to the washing of the banks which the rain had
poured into it. Looking back, we could see a cloud on Graylock;
but on other parts of Saddle Mountain there were spots of
sunshine, some of most glorious brightness, contrasting with the
general gloom of the sky, and the deep shadow which lay on the
earth.

We looked at the
spot where the stream makes its entrance into the marble cliff,
and it was (this morning, at least) the most striking view of the
cave. The water dashed down in a misty cascade, through what
looked like the portal of some infernal subterranean structure;
and far within the portal we could see the mist and the falling
water; and it looked as if, but for these obstructions of view,
we might have had a deeper insight into a gloomy region.

After our return,
the little minister set off for his eighteen miles' journey
across the mountains; and I was occupied the rest of the forenoon
with an affair of stealing,--a woman of forty or upwards being
accused of stealing a needle-case and other trifles from a
factory-girl at a boarding-house. She came here to take passage
in a stage; but Putnam, a justice of the peace, examined her and
afterwards ordered her to be searched by Laura and Eliza, the
chambermaid and table-waiter. Hereupon was much fun and some
sympathy. They searched, and found nothing that they sought,
though she gave up a pair of pantalets, which she pretended to
have taken by mistake. Afterwards, she being in the parlor, I
went in; and sheimmediately began to talk to me, giving me an
account of the affair, speaking with the bitterness of a wronged
person, with a sparkling eye, yet with great fluency and
self-possession. She is a yellow, thin, and battered old thing,
yet rather country-lady-like in aspect and manners. I heard
Eliza telling another girl about it, under my window; and she
seemed to think that the poor woman's reluctance to be
searched arose from the poorness of her wardrobe and of the
contents of her bandbox.

At parting, Eliza
said to the girl, "What do you think I heard somebody say
about you? That it was enough to make anybody's eyes start
square out of their head to look at such red cheeks as
yours." Whereupon the girl turned off the compliment with a
laugh, and took her leave.

There is an old
blind dog, recognizing his friends by the sense of smell. I
observed the eager awkwardness with which he accomplishes the
recognition, his carefulness in descending steps, and generally
in his locomotion. He evidently has not forgotten that he once
had the faculty of sight; for he turns his eyes with earnestness
towards those who attract his attention, though the orbs are
plainly sightless.

Here is an
Englishman,--a thorough-going Tory and Monarchist,--upholding
everything English, government, people, habits, education,
manufactures, modes of living, and expressing his dislike of all
Americanisms,--and this in a quiet, calm, reasonable way, as if
it were quite proper to live in a country and draw his
subsistence from it, and openly abuse it. He imports his clothes
from England, and expatiates on the superiority of English boots,
hats, cravats, etc. He is a man of unmalleable habits, and wears
his dress of the same fashion as that of twenty years ago.

August
18th.--There has come one of the proprietors, or
superintendents of a caravan of animals,--a large,
portly-paunched, dark-complexioned, brandy-burnt, heavy-faced man
of about fifty; with a diminutive nose in proportion to the size
of his face,--thick lips; nevertheless he has the air of a man
who has seen much, and derived such experience as was for his
purpose. Also it is the air of a man not in a subordinate
station, though vulgar and coarse. He arrived in a wagon, with a
span of handsome gray horses, and ordered dinner. He had left
his caravan at Worcester, and came from thence and over the
mountain hither, to settle stopping-places for the caravan. The
nearest place to this, I believe, was Charlemont; the penultimate
at Greenfield. In stopping at such a village as this, they do
not expect much profit, if any; but would be content with enough
to pay their travelling expenses, while they look to gather gain
at larger places. In this village, it seems, the selectmen had
resolved not to license any public exhibition of the kind; and it
was interesting to attend to the consultations whether it were
feasible to overcome the objections, and what might be the best
means. Orrin S---- and the chance passers-by took part in the
discussion. The scruple is that the factory-girls, having ready
money by them, spend it for these nonsenses, quitting their work;
whereas, were it a mere farming-town, the caravan would take
little in proportion to their spendings. The opinion generally
was that the license could not be obtained; and the portly
man's face grew darker and downcast at the prospect; and he
took out a travelling-map and looked it carefully over, to
discover some other station. This is something like the planning
of the march of an army. It wasfinally resolved to enlist the influence of a
brother-in-law of the head selectman, and try to gain his
consent. Whereupon the caravan-man and the brother-in-law (who,
being a tavern-keeper, was to divide the custom of the caravan
people with this house) went to make the attempt,--the
caravan-man stalking along with stiff, awkward bulk and stature,
yet preserving a respectability withal though with somewhat of
the blackguard. Before he went, he offered a wager of "a
drink of rum or a chaw of tobacco" that he did not succeed.
When he came back there was a flush in his face and a sparkle in
his eye that did not look like failure; but I know not what was
the result. He took a glass of wine with the brother-in-law,--a
grave, thin, frosty-haired, shrewd-looking yeoman, in his
shirt-sleeves,--then ordered his horses, paid his bill, and drove
off, accompanied still by the same yeoman, perhaps to get the
permission of the other two selectmen. If he does not get a
license here, he will try at Cheshire.

A fellow appears
with a pink guard-chain and two breast-pins in his shirt,--one a
masonic one of gold, with compass and square, and the other of
colored glass, set in filigree brass,--and the shirt a soiled
one.

A tendency to
obesity is more common in this part of the country than I have
noticed it elsewhere.

August
19th.--I drove with Orrin S---- last evening to an old
farmer's house to get some chickens. Entering the kitchen,
I observed a fireplace with rough stone jambs and back, and a
marble hearth, cracked, and otherwise contrasting a roughness of
workmanship with the value of the material. Therewas a clock without a case, the
weights being visible, and the pendulum swinging in air,--and a
coffee-mill fixed against the wall. A religious newspaper lay on
the mantel-piece. The old farmer was reluctant to go after the
fowls, declaring that it would be impossible to find them in the
dark; but Orrin insisting, he lighted a lamp, and we all went
together, and quickly found them, roosted about the wood-pile;
whereupon Orrin speedily laid hands on five, and wrung their
necks in a twinkling, they fluttering long after they should have
been dead. When we had taken our departure, Orrin remarked,
"How faint-hearted these old fellows are!" and it was a
good observation; for it was the farmer's timorous age that
made him doubt the practicability of catching the chickens, and
it contrasted well with the persevering energy of the middle-aged
Orrin. But Orrin inquired, somewhat dolefully, whether I should
suppose that he himself bewailed the advances of age. It is a
grievous point with him.

In the evening
there was a strange fellow in the bar-room,--a sort of mock
Methodist,--a cattle-drover, who had stopped here for the night
with two cows and a Durham bull. All his talk turned upon
religion, and he would ever and anon burst out in some strain of
scriptural-styled eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an
exhortation at a camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and
no-religionists sat around him, making him their butt, and
holding wild argument with him; and he strangely mingled humor,
with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his humor so that it was
almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest or earnest.
Probably it was neither, but an eccentricity, an almost
monomania, that has grownupon him,--perhaps the result of strong
religious excitement. And, having been a backslider, he is
cursed with a half-frenzied humor. In the morning he talked in
the same strain at breakfast, while quaffing fourteen cups of
tea,--Eliza, all the while, as she supplied him, entreating him
not to drink any more. After breakfast (it being the Sabbath) he
drove his two cows and bull past the stoop, raising his staff,
and running after them with strange, uncouth gestures; and the
last word I heard from him was an exhortation: "Gentlemen,
now all of you take your Bibles, and meditate on divine
things,"--this being uttered with raised hands, and a
Methodistical tone, intermingled, as was his expression, with
something humorous; so that, to the last, the puzzle was still
kept up, whether he was an enthusiast or a jester. He wore a
suit of coarse brown cloth, cut in rather a Quaker fashion; and
he had a large nose, and his face expressed enthusiasm and
humor,--a sort of smile and twinkle of the eye, with wildness.
He is excellent at a bargain; and if, in the midst of his ghostly
exhortation, the talk were turned on cattle, he eagerly seized
the topic and expatiated on it.

While this
fellow was enumerating the Universalists in neighboring towns who
had turned from their errors on their death-beds, some one
exclaimed, "John Hodges! why, he isn't
dead,--he's alive and well." Whereat there was a roar
of laughter. While holding an argument at table, I heard him
mutter to himself at something that his adversary said; and
though I could not distinguish what it was, the tone did more to
convince me of some degree of earnestness than aught beside.
This character might be wrought into a strange portrait of
something sad, terrific, and laughable.

The Sabbath
wore away lazily, and therefore wickedly. The heavy caravan-man
inquired for some book of light reading, and, having
obtained an old volume of a literary paper, betook himself to the
seat of his wagon, to read. At other times he smoked, and talked
sensibly enough with anybody that offered. He is a man of sense,
though not quick, and seems to be a fair man.

When he walks,
he puts the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his waistcoat,
and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk was
chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling,
without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would
be interested in. He spoke of his life as a hard one.

There is a
fellow hereabout who refuses to pay six dollars for the coffin in
which his wife was buried. She died about six months since, and
I believe he is already engaged to another. He is young and
rather comely, but has not a straightforward look.

One man plods
along, looking always on the ground, without ever lifting his
eyes to the mountain scenery, and forest, and clouds, above and
around him. Another walks the street with a quick, prying eye,
and sharp face,--the most expressive possible of one on the
look-out for gain,--of the most disagreeable class of Yankees.
There is also a sour-looking, unwholesome boy, the son of this
man, whose voice is querulous and ill-natured, precisely suited
to his aspect. So is his character.

We have
another with Indian blood in him, and the straight, black
hair,--something of the tawny skinand the quick, shining eye of the Indian. He
seems reserved, but is not ill-natured when spoken to. There is
so much of the white in him, that he gives the impression of
belonging to a civilized race, which causes the more strange
sensation on discovering that he has a wild lineage.

August 22d.--I walked out into
what is called the Notch this forenoon, between Saddle Mountain
and another. There are good farms in this Notch, although the
ground is considerably elevated,--this morning, indeed, above the
clouds; for I penetrated through one in reaching the higher
region, although I found sunshine there. Graylock was hidden in
clouds, and the rest of Saddle Mountain had one partially
wreathed about it; but it was withdrawn before long. It was very
beautiful cloud-scenery. The clouds lay on the breast of the
mountain, dense, white, well-defined, and some of them were in
such close vicinity that it seemed as if I could infold myself in
them; while others, belonging to the same fleet, were floating
through the blue sky above. I had a view of Williamstown at the
distance of a few miles,--two or three, perhaps,--a white village
and steeple in a gradual hollow, with high mountainous swells
heaving themselves up, like immense, subsiding waves, far and
wide around it. On these high mountain-waves rested the white
summer clouds, or they rested as still in the air above; and they
were formed into such fantastic shapes that they gave the
strongest possible impression of being confounded or intermixed
with the sky. It was like a day-dream to look at it; and the
students ought to be day-dreamers, all of them,--when cloud-land
is one and the same thing with the substantial earth. Bydegrees all these
clouds flitted away, and the sultry summer sun burned on hill and
valley. As I was walking home, an old man came down the
mountain-path behind me in a wagon, and gave me a drive to the
village. Visitors being few in the Notch, the women and girls
looked from the windows after me; the men nodded and greeted me
with a look of curiosity; and two little girls whom I met,
bearing tin pails, whispered one another and smiled.

North Adams,
August 23d.--The county commissioners held a
court in the bar-room yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of
letting out the making of the new road over the mountain. The
commissioners sat together in attitudes of some dignity, with one
leg laid across another; and the people, to the number of twenty
or thirty, sat round about with their hats on, in their
shirtsleeves, with but little, yet with some, formality. Several
had come from a distance to bid for the job. They sat with whips
in their hands. The first bid was three dollars,--then there was
a long silence,--then a bid of two dollars eighty-five cents, and
finally it was knocked down at two eighteen, per rod. A
disposition to bid was evidenced in one man by his joking on the
bid of another.

After supper,
as the sun was setting, a man passed by the door with a
hand-organ, connected with which was a row of figures, such as
dancers, pirouetting and turning, a lady playing on a piano,
soldiers, a negro wench dancing, and opening and shutting a huge
red mouth,--all these keeping time to the lively or slow tunes of
the organ. The man had a pleasant, but sly, dark face; he
carried his whole establishment on his shoulder, it being
fastened to a staff which he restedon the ground when he performed. A little
crowd of people gathered about him on the stoop, peeping over
each other's heads with huge admiration,--fat Otis Hodge,
and the tall stage-driver, and the little boys all declaring that
it was the masterpiece of sights. Some few coppers did the man
obtain, as well as much praise. He had come over the high,
solitary mountain, where for miles there could hardly be a soul
to hear his music.

In the
evening, a portly old commissioner, a cheerful man enough, was
sitting reading the newspaper in the parlor, holding the candle
between the newspaper and his eyes,--its rays glittering on his
silver-bowed spectacles and silvery hair. A pensive mood of age
had come upon him, and sometimes he heaved a long sigh, while he
turned and returned the paper, and folded it for convenient
reading. By and by a gentleman came to see him, and he talked
with him cheerfully.

The fat old
squire, whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure,
with his bluff, red face,--coarsely red,--set in silver
hair,--his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle,
using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back
of these fat men is truly a wonder.

A decent man,
at table the other day, took the only remaining potato out of the
dish, on the end of his knife, and offered his friend half of
it!

The mountains
look much larger and more majestic sometimes than at
others,--partly because the mind may be variously disposed, so as
to comprehend them more or less, and partly that an imperceptible
(or almost so) haze adds a great deal to the effect. Saddleback
often looks a huge, black mass,--black-green, or black-blue.

The cave makes
a fresh impression upon me every time I visit it,--so deep, so
irregular, so gloomy, so stern,--part of its walls the pure white
of the marble,--others covered with a gray decomposition and with
spots of moss, and with brake growing where there is a handful of
earth. I stand and look into its depths at various points, and
hear the roar of the stream reëchoing up. It is like a
heart that has been rent asunder by a torrent of passion, which
has raged and foamed, and left its ineffaceable traces; though
now there is but a little rill of feeling at the bottom.

In parts,
trees have fallen across the fissure,--trees with large
trunks.

I bathed in
the stream in this old, secluded spot, which I frequent for that
purpose. To reach it, I cross one branch of the stream on
stones, and then pass to the other side of a little island,
overgrown with trees and underbrush. Where I bathe, the stream
has partially dammed itself up by sweeping together tree-trunks
and slabs and branches, and a thousand things that have come down
its current for years perhaps; so that there is a deep pool, full
of eddies and little whirlpools, which would carry me away, did I
not take hold of the stem of a small tree that lies opportunely
transversely across the water. The bottom is uneven, with rocks
of various size, against which it is difficult to keep from
stumbling, so rapid is the stream. Sometimes it bears along
branches and strips of bark,--sometimes a green leaf, or
perchance a dry one,--occasionally overwhelmed by the eddies and
borne deep under water, then rushing atop the waves.

The forest,
bordering the stream, produces its effect by a complexity of
causes,--the old and stern trees, with stately trunks and dark
foliage,--as the almostblack pines,--the young trees, with lightsome
green foliage,--as sapling oaks, maples, and poplars,--then the
old, decayed trunks, that are seen lying here and there, all
mouldered, so that the foot would sink into them. The sunshine,
falling capriciously on a casual branch considerably within the
forest verge, while it leaves nearer trees in shadow, leads the
imagination into the depths. But it soon becomes bewildered
there. Rocks strewn about, half hidden in the fallen leaves,
must not be overlooked.

August 26th.--A funeral last
evening, nearly at sunset,--a coffin of a boy about ten years old
laid on a one-horse wagon among some straw,--two or three
barouches and wagons following. As the funeral passed though the
village street, a few men formed a short procession in front of
the coffin, among whom were Orrin S---- and I. The burial-ground
(there are two in the town) is on the sides and summit of a round
hill, which is planted with cypress and other trees, among which
the white marble gravestones show pleasantly. The grave was dug
on the steep slope of a hill; and the grave-digger was waiting
there, and two or three other shirt-sleeved yeomen, leaning
against the trees.

Orrin S----, a
wanton and mirth-making middle-aged man, who would not seem to
have much domestic feeling, took a chief part on the occasion,
assisting in taking the coffin from the wagon and in lowering it
into the grave. There being some superfluous earth at the bottom
of the grave, the coffin was drawn up again after being once
lowered, and the obstacle removed with a hoe; then it was lowered
again for the last time. While this was going on, the father
andmother stood
weeping at the upper end of the grave, at the head of the little
procession,--the mother sobbing with stifled violence, and
peeping forth to discover why the coffin was drawn up again. It
being fitted in its place, Orrin S---- strewed some straw upon
it,--this being the custom here, because "the clods on the
coffin-lid have an ugly sound." Then the Baptist minister,
having first whispered to the father, removed his hat, the
spectators all doing the same, and thanked them "in the name
of these mourners, for this last act of kindness to
them."

In all these
rites Orrin S---- bore the chief part with real feeling and sadly
decorous demeanor. After the funeral, I took a walk on the
Williamstown road, towards the west. There had been a heavy
shower in the afternoon, and clouds were brilliant all over the
sky, around Graylock and everywhere else. Those over the hills
of the west were the most splendid in purple and gold, and, there
being a haze, it added immensely to their majesty and dusky
magnificence.

This morning I
walked a little way along the mountain road, and stood awhile in
the shadow of some oak and chestnut-trees,--it being a warm,
bright, sunshiny morning. The shades lay long from trees and
other objects, as at sunset, but how different this cheerful and
light radiance from the mild repose of sunset! Locusts,
crickets, and other insects were making music. Cattle were
feeding briskly, with morning appetites. The wakeful voices of
children were heard in a neighboring hollow. The dew damped the
road, and formed many-colored drops in the grass. In short, the
world was not weary with a long, sultry day, but in a fresh,
recruited state, fit to carry it through such a day.

A
rough-looking, sunburnt, soiled-shirted, odd, middle-aged little
man came to the house a day or two ago, seeking work. He had
come from Ohio, and was returning to his native place, somewhere
in New England, stopping occasionally to earn money to pay his
way. There was something rather ludicrous in his physiognomy and
aspect. He was very free to talk with all and sundry. He made a
long eulogy on his dog Tiger, yesterday, insisting on his good
moral character, his not being quarrelsome, his docility, and all
other excellent qualities that a huge, strong, fierce mastiff
could have. Tiger is the bully of the village, and keeps all the
other dogs in awe. His aspect is very spirited, trotting
massively along, with his tail elevated and his head likewise.
"When he sees a dog that's anything near his size,
he's apt to growl a little,"--Tiger had the marks of a
battle on him,--"yet he's a good dog."

Friday,
August 31st.--A drive on Tuesday to Shelburne
Falls, twenty-two miles or thereabouts distant. Started at about
eight o'clock in a wagon with Mr. Leach and Mr. Birch.
Our road lay over the Green Mountains, the long ridge of which
made awful by a dark, heavy, threatening cloud, apparently rolled
and condensed along the whole summit. As we ascended the zigzag
road, we looked behind, at every opening in the forest, and
beheld a wide landscape of mountain-swells and valleys
intermixed, and old Graylock and the whole of Saddleback. Over
the wide scene there was a general gloom; but there was a
continual vicissitude of bright sunshine flitting over it, now
resting for a brief space on portions of the heights, now
flooding the valleys with greenbrightness, now making out distinctly each
dwelling, and the hotels, and then two small brick churches of
the distant village, denoting its prosperity, while all around
seemed under adverse fortunes. But we, who stood so elevated
above mortal things, and saw so wide and far, could see the
sunshine of prosperity departing from one spot and rolling
towards another, so that we could not think it much matter which
spot were sunny or gloomy at any one moment.

The top of
this Hoosic Mountain is a long ridge, marked on the county map as
two thousand one hundred and sixty feet above the sea; on this
summit is a valley, not very deep, but one or two miles wide, in
which is the town of L----. Here there are respectable farmers,
though it is a rough, and must be a bleak place. The first
house, after reaching the summit, is a small, homely tavern. We
left our horse in the shed, and, entering the little unpainted
bar-room, we heard a voice, in a strange, outlandish accent,
exclaiming "Diorama." It was an old man, with a full,
gray-bearded countenance, and Mr. Leach exclaimed, "Ah,
here's the old Dutchman again!" And he answered,
"Yes, Captain, here's the old Dutchman," though,
by the way, he is a German, and travels the country with this
diorama in a wagon, and had recently been at South Adams, and was
now returning from Saratoga Springs. We looked though the glass
orifice of his machine, while he exhibited a succession of the
very worst scratches and daubings that can be imagined,--worn
out, too, and full of cracks and wrinkles, dimmed with
tobacco-smoke, and every other wise dilapidated. There were none
in a later fashion than thirty years since, except some figures
that had been cut from tailors' show-bills. There were
viewsof cities
and edifices in Europe, of Napoleon's battles and
Nelson's sea-fights, in the midst of which would be seen a
gigantic, brown, hairy hand (the Hand of Destiny) pointing at the
principal points of the conflict, while the old Dutchman
explained. He gave a good deal of dramatic effect to his
descriptions, but his accent and intonation cannot be written.
He seemed to take interest and pride in his exhibition; yet when
the utter and ludicrous miserabiity thereof made us laugh, he
joined in the joke very readily. When the last picture had been
shown, he caused a country boor, who stood gaping beside the
machine, to put his head within it, and thrust out his tongue.
The head becoming gigantic, a singular effect was produced.

The old
Dutchman's exhibition being over, a great dog, apparently an
elderly dog, suddenly made himself the object of notice,
evidently in rivalship of the Dutchman. He had seemed to be a
good-natured, quiet kind of dog, offering his head to be patted
by those who were kindly disposed towards him. This great, old
dog, unexpectedly, and of his own motion, began to run round
after his not very long tail with the utmost eagerness; and,
catching hold of it, he growled furiously at it, and still
continued to circle round, growling and snarling with increasing
rage, as if one half of his body were at deadly enmity with the
other. Faster and faster went he, round and roundabout, growing
still fiercer, till at last he ceased in a state of utter
exhaustion; but no sooner had his exhibition finished than he
became the same mild, quiet, sensible old dog as before; and no
one could have suspected him of such nonsense as getting enraged
with his own tail. He was first taught this trick byattaching a bell to
the end of his tail; but he now commences entirely of his own
accord, and I really believe he feels vain at the attention he
excites.

It was chill
and bleak on the mountain-top, and a fire was burning in the
bar-room. The old Dutchman bestowed on everybody the title of
"Captain," perhaps because such a title has a great
chance of suiting an American.

Leaving the
tavern, we drove a mile or two farther to the eastern brow of the
mountain, whence we had a view, over the tops of a multitude of
heights, into the intersecting valleys down which we were to
plunge,--and beyond them the blue and indistinctive scene
extended to the east and north for at least sixty miles. Beyond
the hills it looked almost as if the blue ocean might be seen.
Monadnock was visible, like a sapphire cloud against the sky.
Descending, we by and by got a view of the Deerfield River, which
makes a bend in its course from about north and south to about
east and west, coming out from one defile among the mountains,
and flowing through another. The scenery on the eastern side of
the Green Mountains is incomparably more striking than on the
western, where the long swells and ridges have a flatness of
effect; and even Graylock heaves itself so gradually that it does
not much strike the beholder. But on the eastern part, peaks one
or two thousand feet high rash up on either bank of the river in
ranges, thrusting out their shoulders side by side. They are
almost precipitous, clothed in woods, through which the naked
rock pushes itself forth to view. Sometimes the peak is bald,
while the forest wraps the body of the hill, and the baldness
gives it an indescribably stern effect. Sometimes the precipice
rises with abruptness fromthe immediate side of the river; sometimes
there is a cultivated valley on either side,--cultivated long,
and with all the smoothness and antique rurality of a farm near
cities,--this gentle picture strongly set off by the wild
mountain-frame around it. Often it would seem a wonder how our
road was to continue, the mountains rose so abruptly on either
side, and stood, so direct a wall, across our onward course;
while, looking behind, it would be an equal mystery how we had
gotten thither, through the huge base of the mountain, that
seemed to have reared itself erect after our passage. But,
passing onward, a narrow defile would give us egress into a scene
where new mountains would still appear to bar us. Our road was
much of it level; but scooped out among mountains. The river was
a brawling stream, shallow and roughened by rocks; now we drove
on a plane with it; now there was a sheer descent down from the
roadside upon it, often unguarded by any kind of fence, except by
the trees that contrived to grow on the headlong interval.
Between the mountains there were gorges, that led the imagination
away into new scenes of wildness. I have never driven through
such romantic scenery, where there was such a variety and
boldness of mountain shapes as this; and though it was a broad
sunny day, the mountains diversified the view with sunshine and
shadow, and glory and gloom.

In Charlemont
(I think), after passing a bridge, we saw a very curious rock on
the shore of the river, about twenty feet from the roadside.
Clambering down the bank, we found it a complete arch, hollowed
out of the solid rock, and as high as the arched entrance of an
ancient church, which it might be taken to be, though
considerably dilapidated andweather-worn. The water flows through it,
though the rock afforded standing room, beside the pillars. It
was really like the archway of an enchanted palace, all of which
has vanished except the entrance,--now only into nothingness and
empty space. We climbed to the top of the arch, in which the
traces of water having eddied are very perceptible. This
curiosity occurs in a wild part of the river's course, and
in a solitude of mountains.

Farther down,
the river becoming deeper, broader, and more placid, little boats
were seen moored along it, for the convenience of crossing.
Sometimes, too, the well-beaten track of wheels and hoofs passed
down to its verge, then vanished, and appeared on the other side,
indicating a ford. We saw one house, pretty, small, with green
blinds, and much quietness in its environments on the other side
of the river, with a flat-bottomed boat for communication. It
was a pleasant idea that the world was kept off by the river.

Proceeding
onward, we reached Shelburne Falls. Here the river, in the
distance of a few hundred yards, makes a descent of about a
hundred and fifty feet over a prodigious bed of rock. Formerly
it doubtless flowed unbroken over the rock, merely creating a
rapid; and traces of water having raged over it are visible in
portions of the rock that now lie high and dry. At present the
river roars through a channel which it has worn in the stone,
leaping in two or three distinct falls, and rushing downward, as
from flight to flight of a broken and irregular staircase. The
mist rises from the highest of these cataracts, and forms a
pleasant object in the sunshine. The best view, I think, is to
stand on the verge of the upper and largest fall, and look down
through the whole rapid descent of theriver, as it hurries, foaming, through its
rock-worn path,--the rocks seeming to have been hewn away, as
when mortals make a road. These falls are the largest in this
State, and have a very peculiar character. It seems as if water
had had more power at some former period than now, to hew and
tear its passage through such an immense ledge of rock as here
withstood it. In this crag, or parts of it, now far beyond the
reach of the water, it has worn what are called pot-holes,--being
circular hollows in the rock, where for ages stones have been
whirled round and round by the eddies of the water; so that the
interior of the pot is as circular and as smooth as it could have
been made by art. Often the mouth of the pot is the narrowest
part, the inner space being deeply scooped out. Water is
contained in most of these pot-holes, sometimes so deep that a
man might drown himself therein, and lie undetected at the
bottom. Some of them are of a convenient size for cooking, which
might be practicable by putting in hot stones.

The tavern at
Shelburne Falls was about the worst I ever saw,--there being
hardly anything to eat, at least nothing of the meat kind. There
was a party of students from the Rensselaer school at Troy, who
had spent the night there, a set of rough urchins, from sixteen
to twenty years old, accompanied by the wagon-driver, a short,
stubbed little fellow, who walked about with great independence,
thrusting his hands into his breeches-pockets, beneath his frock.
The queerness was, such a figure being associated with classic
youth. They were on an excursion which is yearly made from that
school in search of minerals. They seemed in rather better moral
habits than students used to be, but wild-spirited, rude, and
unpolished, somewhat likeGerman students, which resemblance one or two
of them increased by smoking pipes. In the morning, my breakfast
being set in a corner of the same room with them, I saw their
breakfast-table, with a huge wash-bowl of milk in the centre, and
a basin and spoon placed for each guest.

In the
bar-room of this tavern were posted up written advertisements,
the smoked chimney-piece being thus made to serve for a
newspaper: "I have rye for sale," "I have a fine
mare colt," etc. There was one quaintly expressed
advertisement of a horse that had strayed or been stolen from a
pasture.

The students,
from year to year, have been in search of a particular rock,
somewhere on the mountains in the vicinity of Shelburne Falls,
which is supposed to contain some valuable ore; but they cannot
find it. One man in the bar-room observed that it must be
enchanted; and spoke of a tinker, during the Revolutionary War,
who met with a somewhat similar instance. Roaming along the
Hudson River, he came to a precipice which had some bunches of
singular appearance embossed upon it. He knocked off one of the
bunches, and carrying it home, or to a camp, or wherever he
lived, he put it on the fire, and melted it down into clear lead.
He sought for the spot again and again, but could never find
it.

Mr.
Leach's brother is a student at Shelburne Falls. He is
about thirty-five years old, and married; and at this mature age
he is studying for the ministry, and will not finish his course
for two or three years. He was bred a farmer, but has sold his
farm, and invested the money, and supports himself and wife by
dentistry during his studies. Many of the academy students are
men grown, and some, they say, well towards fortyyears old. Methinks this is
characteristic of American life,--these rough, weather-beaten,
hard-handed, farmer-bred students. In nine cases out of ten they
are incapable of any effectual cultivation; for men of ripe
years, if they have any pith in them, will have long ago got
beyond academy or even college instruction. I suspect nothing
better than a very wretched smattering is to be obtained in these
country academies.

Mr. Jenkins,
an instructor at Amherst, speaking of the Western mounds,
expressed an opinion that they were of the same nature and origin
as some small circular hills which are of very frequent
occurrence here in North Adams. The burial-ground is on one of
them, and there is another, on the summit of which appears a
single tombstone, as if there were something natural in making
these hills the repositories of the dead. A question of old
H---- led to Mr. Jenkins's dissertation on this subject, to
the great contentment of a large circle round the bar-room
fireside on the last rainy day.

A tailor is
detected by Mr. Leach, because his coat had not a single wrinkle
in it. I saw him exhibiting patterns of fashions to Randall, the
village tailor. Mr. Leach has much tact in finding out the
professions of people. He found out a backsmith, because his
right hand was much larger than the other.

A man getting
subscriptions for a religious and abolition newspaper in New
York,--somewhat elderly and gray-haired, quick in his movements,
hasty in his walk, with an eager, earnest stare through his
spectacles, hurrying about with a pocket-book of subscriptions in
his hand,--seldom speaking, and then in briefexpressions,--sitting down before
the stage comes, to write a list of subscribers obtained to his
employers in New York. Withal, a city and business air about
him, as of one accustomed to hurry through narrow alleys, and
dart across thronged streets, and speak hastily to one man and
another at jostling corners, though now transacting his affairs
in the solitude of mountains.

An old, gray
man, seemingly astray and abandoned in this wide world, sitting
in the bar-room, speaking to none, nor addressed by any one. Not
understanding the meaning of the supper-bell till asked to supper
by word of mouth. However, he called for a glass of brandy.

A pedlar, with
girls' neckerchiefs,--or gauze,--men's silk
pocket-handkerchiefs, red bandannas, and a variety of horn combs,
trying to trade with the servant-girls of the house. One of
them, Laura, attempts to exchange a worked vandyke, which she
values at two dollars and a half; Eliza, being reproached by the
pedlar, "vows that she buys more of pedlars than any other
person in the house."

A drove of
pigs passing at dusk. They appeared not so much disposed to
ramble and go astray from the line of march as in daylight, but
kept together in a pretty compact body. There was a general
grunting, not violent at all, but low and quiet, as if they were
expressing their sentiments among themselves in a companionable
way. Pigs, on a march, do not subject themselves to any leader
among themselves, but pass on, higgledy-piggledy, without regard
to age or sex.

September 1st.--Last evening,
during a walk, Graylock and the whole of Saddleback were at first
imbued with a mild, half-sunshiny tinge, then grew almost
black,--a huge, dark mass lying on the back of the earth and
encumbering it. Stretching up from behind the black mountain,
over a third or more of the sky, there was a heavy, sombre blue
heap or ledge of clouds, looking almost as solid as rocks. The
volumes of which it was composed were perceptible by translucent
lines and fissures; but the mass, as a whole, seemed as solid,
bulky, and ponderous in the cloud-world as the mountain was on
earth. The mountain and cloud together had an indescribably
stern and majestic aspect. Beneath this heavy cloud, there was a
fleet or flock of light, vapory mists, flitting in middle air;
and these were tinted, from the vanished sun, with the most
gorgeous and living purple that can be conceived,--a fringe upon
the stern blue. In the opposite quarter of the heavens, a
rose-light was reflected, whence I know not, which colored the
clouds around the moon, then well above the horizon, so that the
nearly round and silver moon appeared strangely among roseate
clouds,--sometimes half obscured by them.

A man with a
smart horse, upon which the landlord makes laudatory remarks. He
replies that he has "a better at home." Dressed in a
brown, bright-buttoned coat, smartly cut. He immediately becomes
familiar, and begins to talk of the license law, and other
similar topics, making himself at home, as one who, being much of
his time upon the road, finds himself at ease at any tavern. He
inquired after a stage agent, named Brigham, who formerly resided
here, but nowhas
gone to the West. He himself was probably a horse-jockey.

An old lady,
stopping here over the Sabbath, waiting for to-morrow's
stage for Greenfield, having been deceived by the idea that she
could proceed on her journey without delay. Quiet, making
herself comfortable, taken into the society of the women of the
house.

September 3d.--On the slope of
Bald Mountain a clearing, set in the frame of the forest on all
sides,--a growth of clover upon it, which, having been mowed once
this year, is now appropriated to pasturage. Stumps remaining in
the ground; one tall, barkless stem of a tree standing upright,
branchless, and with a shattered summit. One or two other stems
lying prostrate and partly overgrown with bushes and shrubbery,
some of them bearing a yellow flower,--a color which Autumn
loves. The stumps and trunks fire-blackened, yet nothing about
them that indicates a recent clearing, but the roughness of an
old clearing, that, being removed from convenient labor, has none
of the polish of the homestead. The field, with slight
undulations, slopes pretty directly down. Near the lower verge,
a rude sort of barn, or rather haystack roofed over, and with hay
protruding and hanging out. An ox feeding, and putting up his
muzzle to pull down a mouthful of hay; but seeing me, a stranger,
in the upper part of the field, he remains long gazing, and
finally betakes himself to feeding again. A solitary butterfly
flitting to and fro, blown slightly on its course by a cool
September wind,--the coolness of which begins to be tempered by a
bright, glittering sun. There is dew on the grass. In front,
beyondthe lower
spread of forest, Saddle Mountain rises, and the valleys, and
long, swelling hills sweep away. But the impression of this
clearing is solitude, as of a forgotten land.

It is
customary here to toll the bell at the death of a person, at the
hour of his death, whether A.M. or P.M. Not, however, I
suppose, if it happen in deep night.

"There
are three times in a man's life when he is talked
about,--when he is born, when he is married, and when he
dies." "Yes," said Orrin S----, "and only one
of the times has he to pay anything for it out of his own
pocket." (In reference to a claim by the guests of the
bar-room on the man Amasa Richardson for a treat.)

A
wood-chopper, travelling the country in search of jobs at
chopping. His baggage a bundle, a handkerchief, and a pair of
coarse boots. His implement an axe, most keenly ground and
sharpened, which I had noticed standing in a corner, and thought
it would almost serve as a razor. I saw another wood-chopper
sitting down on the ascent of Bald Mountain, with his axe on one
side and a jug and provisions on the other, on the way to his
day's toil.

The
Revolutionary pensioners come out into the sunshine to make oath
that they are still above ground. One, whom Mr. S---- saluted
as "Uncle John," went into the bar-room, walking pretty
stoutly by the aid of a long, oaken staff,--with an old, creased,
broken and ashen bell-crowned hat on his head, and wearinga brown,
old-fashioned suit of clothes. Pretty portly, fleshy in the
face, and with somewhat of a paunch, cheerful, and his senses,
bodily and mental, in no very bad order, though he is now in his
ninetieth year. "An old withered and wilted apple,"
quoth Uncle John, "keeps a good while." Mr. S---- says
his grandfather lived to be a hundred, and that his legs became
covered with moss, like the trunk of an old tree. Uncle John
would smile and cackle at a little jest, and what life there was
in him seemed a good-natured and comfortable one enough. He can
walk two or three miles, he says, "taking it moderate."
I suppose his state is that of a drowsy man but partly conscious
of life,--walking as through a dim dream, but brighter at some
seasons than at others. By and by he will fall quite asleep,
without any trouble. Mr. S----, unbidden, gave him a glass of
gin, which the old man imbibed by the warm fireside, and grew the
younger for it.

September 4th.--This day an
exhibition of animals in the vicinity of the village, under a
pavilion of sail-cloth,--the floor being the natural grass, with
here and there a rock partially protruding. A pleasant, mild
shade; a strip of sunshine or a spot of glimmering brightness in
some parts. Crowded,--row above row of women, on an amphitheatre
of seats, on one side. In an inner pavilion an exhibition of
anacondas,--four,--which the showman took, one by one, from a
large box, under some blankets, and hung round his shoulders.
They seemed almost torpid when first taken out, but gradually
began to assume life, to stretch, to contract, twine and writhe
about his neck and person, thrusting out their tongues anderecting their
heads. Their weight was as much as he could bear, and they hung
down almost to the ground when not contorted,--as big round as a
man's thigh, almost,--spotted and richly variegated. Then
he put them into the box again, their heads emerging and writhing
forth, which the showman thrust back again. He gave a
descriptive and historical account of them, and a fanciful and
poetical one also. A man put his arm and head into the
lion's mouth,--all the spectators looking on so attentively
that a breath could not be heard. That was impressive,--its
effect on a thousand persons,--more so than the thing itself.

In the evening
the caravan people were at the tavern, talking of their troubles
in coming over the mountain,--the overturn of a cage containing
two leopards and a hyena. They are a rough, ignorant set of men,
apparently incapable of taking any particular enjoyment from the
life of variety and adventure which they lead. There was the man
who put his head into the lion's mouth, and, I suppose, the
man about whom the anacondas twined, talking about their suppers,
and blustering for hot meat, and calling for something to drink,
without anything of the wild dignity of men familiar with the
nobility of nature.

A character of
a desperate young man, who employs high courage and strong
faculties in this sort of dangers, and wastes his talents in wild
riot, addressing the audience as a snake-man,--keeping the ring
while the monkey rides the pony,--singing negro and other
songs.

The country
boors were continually getting within thebarriers, and venturing too near
the cages . The great lion lay with his fore paws extended, and
a calm, majestic, but awful countenance. He looked on the people
as if he had seen many such concourses. The hyena was the most
ugly and dangerous looking beast, full of spite, and on ill terms
with all nature, looking a good deal like a hog with the devil in
him, the ridge of hair along his back bristling. He was in the
cage with a leopard and a panther, and the latter seemed
continually on the point of laying his paw on the hyena, who
snarled, and showed his teeth. It is strange, though, to see how
these wild beasts acknowledge and practise a degree of mutual
forbearance, and of obedience to man, with their wild nature yet
in them. The great white bear seemed in distress from the heat,
moving his head and body in a peculiar, fantastic way, and
eagerly drinking water when given it. He was thin and lank.

The caravan
men were so sleepy, Orrin S---- says, that he could hardly wake
them in the morning. They turned over on their faces to show
him.

Coming out of
the caravansary, there were the mountains, in the quiet sunset,
and many men drunk, swearing, and fighting. Shanties with liquor
for sale.

September 5th.--I took a walk
of three miles from the village, which brought me into Vermont.
The line runs athwart a bridge,--a rude bridge, which crosses a
mountain stream. The stream runs deep at the bottom of a gorge,
plashing downward, with rapids and pools, and bestrewn with large
rocks, deep and shady, not to be reached by the sun except in its
meridian, as well on account of the depth of the gorgeas of the arch of
wilderness trees above it. There was a stumpy clearing beyond
the bridge, where some men were building a house. I went to
them, and inquired if I were in Massachusetts or Vermont, and
asked for some water. Whereupon they showed great hospitality,
and the master-workman went to the spring, and brought delicious
water in a tin basin, and produced another jug containing
"new rum, and very good; and rum does nobody any harm if
they make a good use of it," quoth he. I invited them to
call on me at the hotel, if they should come to the village
within two or three days. Then I took my way back through the
forest, for this is a by-road, and is, much of its course, a
sequestrated and wild one, with an unseen torrent roaring at an
unseen depth, along the roadside.

My walk forth
had been an almost continued ascent, and, returning, I had an
excellent view of Graylock and the adjacent mountains, at such a
distance that they were all brought into one group, and
comprehended at one view, as belonging to the same company,--all
mighty, with a mightier chief. As I drew nearer home, they
separated, and the unity of effect was lost. The more distant
then disappeared behind the nearer ones, and finally Graylock
itself was lost behind the hill which immediately shuts in the
village. There was a warm, autumnal haze, which, I think, seemed
to throw the mountains farther off, and both to enlarge and
soften them.

To imagine the
gorges and deep hollows in among the group of mountains,--their
huge shoulders and protrusions.

"They were just beginning to pitch over the mountains, as
I came along,"--stage-driver's expression about the
caravan.

A fantastic
figure of a village coxcomb, striding through the bar-room, and
standing with folded arms to survey the caravan men. There is
much exaggeration and rattle-brain about this fellow.

A mad girl
leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice in Pownall,
hundreds of feet high, if the tale be true, and, being buoyed up
by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.

Inquiries
about the coming of the caravan, and whether the elephant had got
to town, and reports that he had.

A smart,
plump, crimson-faced gentleman, with a travelling-portmanteau of
peculiar neatness and convenience. He criticises the road over
the mountain, having come in the Greenfleld stage; perhaps an
engineer.

Bears still
inhabit Saddleback and the neighboring mountains and forests.
Six were taken in Pownall last year, and two hundred foxes.
Sometimes they appear on the hills, in close proximity to this
village.

September 7th.--Mr. Leach and
I took a walk by moonlight last evening, on the road that leads
over the mountain. Remote from houses, far up on the hill-side,
we found a lime-kiln, burning near the road; and, approaching it,
a watcher started from the ground, where he had been lying at his
length. There are several of these lime-kilns in this vicinity.
They are circular, built with stones, like a round tower,
eighteen or twenty feet high, having a hillock heaped around ina great portion of
their circumference, so that the marble may be brought and thrown
in by cart-loads at the top. At the bottom there is a doorway,
large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture. Thus an
edifice of great solidity is constructed, which will endure for
centuries, unless needless pains are taken to tear it down.
There is one on the hill-side, close to the village, wherein
weeds grow at the bottom, and grass and shrubs too are rooted in
the interstices of the stones, and its low doorway has a
dungeon-like aspect, and we look down from the top as into a
roofless tower. It apparently has not been used for many years,
and the lime and weather-stained fragments of marble are
scattered about.

But in the one
we saw last night a hard-wood fire was burning merrily, beneath
the superincumbent marble,--the kiln being heaped full; and
shortly after we came, the man (a dark, black-bearded figure, in
shirtsleeves) opened the iron door, through the chinks of which
the fire was gleaming, and thrust in huge logs of wood, and
stirred the immense coals with a long pole, and showed us the
glowing limestone,--the lower layer of it. The heat of the fire
was powerful, at the distance of several yards from the open
door. He talked very sensibly with us, being doubtless glad to
have two visitors to vary his solitary night-watch; for it would
not do for him to fall asleep, since the fire should be refreshed
as often as every twenty minutes. We ascended the hillock to the
top of the kiln, and the marble was red-hot, and burning with a
bluish, lambent flame, quivering up, sometimes nearly a yard
high, and resembling the flame of anthracite coal, only, the
marble being in large fragments, the flame was higher. The kiln
was perhaps six or eight feet across.Four hundred bushels of marble were then in a
state of combustion. The expense of converting this quantity
into lime is about fifty dollars, and it sells for twenty-five
cents per bushel at the kiln. We asked the man whether he would
run across the top of the intensely burning kiln, barefooted, for
a thousand dollars; and he said he would for ten. He told us
that the lime had been burning forty-eight hours, and would be
finished in thirty-six more. He liked the business of watching
it better by night than by day; because the days were often hot,
but such a mild and beautiful night as the last was just right.
Here a poet might make verses with moonlight in them, and a gleam
of fierce fire-light flickering through. It is a shame to use
this brilliant, white, almost transparent marble in this way. A
man said of it, the other day, that into some pieces of it, when
polished, one could see a good distance; and he instanced a
certain gravestone.

Visited the
cave. A large portion of it, where water trickles and falls, is
perfectly white. The walls present a specimen of how Nature
packs the stone, crowding huge masses, as it were, into chinks
and fissures, and here we see it in the perpendicular or
horizontal layers, as Nature laid it.

September 9th.--A walk
yesterday forenoon through the Notch, formed between Saddle
Mountain and another adjacent one. This Notch is otherwise
called the Bellowspipe, being a long and narrow valley, with a
steep wall on either side. The walls are very high, and the
fallen timbers lie strewed adown the precipitous descent. The
valley gradually descends from thenarrowest part of the Notch, and a stream of
water flows through the midst of it, which, farther onward in its
course, turns a mill. The valley is cultivated, there being two
or three farm-houses towards the northern end, and extensive
fields of grass beyond, where stand the hay-mows of last year,
with the hay cut away regularly around their bases. All the more
distant portion of the valley is lonesome in the extreme; and on
the hither side of the narrowest part the land is uncultivated,
partly overgrown with forest, partly used as sheep-pastures, for
which purpose it is not nearly so barren as sheep-pastures
usually are. On the right, facing southward, rises Graylock, all
beshagged with forest, and with headlong precipices of rock
appearing among the black pines. Southward there is a most
extensive view of the valley, in which Saddleback and its
companion mountains are crouched,--wide and far,--a broad, misty
valley, fenced in by a mountain wall, and with villages scattered
along it, and miles of forest, which appear but as patches
scattered here and there upon the landscape. The descent from
the Notch southward is much more abrupt than on the other side.
A stream flows down through it; and along much of its course it
has washed away all the earth from a ledge of rock, and then
formed a descending pavement, smooth and regular, which the
scanty flow of water scarcely suffices to moisten at this period,
though a heavy rain, probably, would send down a torrent, raging,
roaring, and foaming. I descended along the course of the
stream, and sometimes on the rocky path of it, and, turning off
towards the south village, followed a cattle-path till I came to
a cottage.

A horse was
standing saddled near the door, but I did not see the rider. I
knocked, and an elderlywoman, of very pleasing and intelligent
aspect, came at the summons, and gave me directions how to get to
the south village through an orchard and "across lots,"
which would bring me into the road near the Quaker meeting-house,
with gravestones round it. While she talked, a young woman came
into the pantry from the kitchen, with a dirty little brat, whose
squalls I had heard all along; the reason of his outcry being
that his mother was washing him,--a very unusual process, if I
may judge by his looks. I asked the old lady for some water, and
she gave me, I think, the most delicious I ever tasted. These
mountaineers ought certainly to be temperance people; for their
mountain springs supply them with a liquor of which the cities
and the low countries can have no conception. Pure, fresh,
almost sparkling, exhilarating,--such water as Adam and Eve
drank.

I passed the
south village on a by-road, without entering it, and was taken up
by the stage from Pittsfield a mile or two this side of it.
Platt, the driver, a friend of mine, talked familiarly about many
matters, intermixing his talk with remarks on his team and
addresses to the beasts composing it, who were three mares, and a
horse on the near wheel,--all bays. The horse he pronounced
"a dreadful nice horse to go; but if he could shirk off the
work upon the others, he would,"--which unfairness Platt
corrected by timely strokes of the whip whenever the horse's
traces were not tightened. One of the mares wished to go faster,
hearing another horse tramp behind her; "and nothing made
her so mad," quoth Platt, "as to be held in when she
wanted to go." The near leader started. "Oh the little
devil," said he, "how skittish she is!" Another
stumbled, and Platt bantered herthereupon. Then he told of floundering
through snow-drifts in winter, and carrying the mail on his back
four miles from Bennington. And thus we jogged on, and got to
"mine inn" just as the dinner-bell was ringing.

Pig-drover,
with two hundred pigs. They are much more easily driven on rainy
days than on fair ones. One of his pigs, a large one,
particularly troublesome as to running off the road towards every
object, and leading the drove. Thirteen miles about a day's
journey, in the course of which the drover has to travel about
thirty.

They have a
dog, who runs to and fro indefatigably, barking at those who
straggle on the flanks of the line of march, then scampering to
the other side and barking there, and sometimes having quite an
affair of barking and surly grunting with some refractory pig,
who has found something to munch, and refuses to quit it. The
pigs are fed on corn at their halts. The drove has some ultimate
market, and individuals are peddled out on the march. Some
die.

Merino sheep
(which are much raised in Berkshire) are good for hardly anything
to eat,--a fair-sized quarter dwindling down to almost nothing in
the process of roasting.

The
tavern-keeper in Stockbridge, an elderly bachelor,--a dusty,
black-dressed, antiquated figure, with a white neck-cloth setting
off a dim, yellow complex-looking like one of the old wax-figures
of ministers in a corner of the New England Museum. He did not
seem old, but like a middle-aged man, who had been preserved in
some dark and cobwebby corner for a great while. He is
asthmatic.

In
Connecticut, and also sometimes in Berkshire, the villages are
situated on the most elevated ground that can be found, so that
they are visible for miles around. Litchfield is a remarkable
instance, occupying a high plain, without the least shelter from
the winds, and with almost as wide an expanse of view as from a
mountain-top. The streets are very wide,--two or three hundred
feet, at least,--with wide, green margins, and sometimes there is
a wide green space between two road tracks. Nothing can be
neater than the churches and houses. The graveyard is on the
slope, and at the foot of a swell, filled with old and new
gravestones, some of red freestone, some of gray granite, most of
them of white marble, and one of cast-iron with an inscription of
raised letters. There was one of the date of about 1776, on
which was represented the third-length, bas-relief portrait of a
gentleman in a wig and other costume of that day; and as a
framework about this portrait was wreathed a garland of
vine-leaves and heavy clusters of grapes. The deceased should
have been a jolly bottleman; but the epitaph indicated nothing of
the kind.

In a remote
part of the graveyard,--remote from the main body of dead
people,--I noticed a humble, mossy stone, on which I traced out
"To the memory of Julia Africa, servant of Rev."
somebody. There were also the half-obliterated traces of other
graves, without any monuments, in the vicinity of this one.
Doubtless the slaves here mingled their dark clay with the
earth.

At Litchfield
there is a doctor who undertakes to cure deformed people,--and
humpbacked, lame, and otherwise defective folk go there. Besides
these, there were many ladies and others boarding there, for the
benefit of the air, I suppose.

At Canaan,
Connecticut, before the tavern, there is a doorstep, two or three
paces large in each of its dimensions; and on this is inscribed
the date when the builder of the house came to the town,--namely,
1731. The house was built in 1751. Then follows the age and
death of the patriarch (at over ninety) and his wife, and the
births of, I think, eleven sons and daughters. It would seem as
if they were buried underneath; and many people take that idea.
It is odd to put a family record in a spot where it is sure to be
trampled underfoot.

At
Springfield, a blind man, who came in the
stage,--elderly,--sitting in the reading-room, and, as soon as
seated, feeling all around him with his cane, so as to find out
his locality, and know where he may spit with safety! The
cautious and scientific air with which he measures his distances.
Then he sits still and silent a long while,--then inquires the
hour,--then says, "I should like to go to bed." Nobody
of the house being near, he receives no answer, and repeats
impatiently, "I'll go to bed." One would suppose,
that, conscious of his dependent condition, he would have learned
a different sort of manner; but probably he has lived where he
could command attention.

Two
travellers, eating bread and cheese of their own in the bar-room
at Stockbridge, and drinking water out of a tumbler borrowed from
the landlord. Eating immensely, and, when satisfied, putting the
relics in their trunk, and rubbing down the table.

Sample ears of
various kinds of corn hanging overthe looking-glass or in the bars of taverns.
Four ears on a stalk (good ones) are considered a heavy
harvest.

A withered,
yellow, sodden, dead-alive looking woman,--an opium-eater. A
deaf man, with a great fancy for conversation, so that his
interlocutor is compelled to halloo and bawl over the rumbling of
the coach, amid which he hears best. The sharp tones of a woman
s voice appear to pierce his dull organs much better than a
masculine voice. The impossibility of saying anything but
commonplace matters to a deaf man, of expressing any delicacy of
thought in a raised tone, of giving utterance to fine feelings in
a bawl. This man's deafness seemed to have made his mind
and feelings uncommonly coarse; for, after the opium-eater had
renewed an old acquaintance with him, almost the first question
he asked, in his raised voice, was, "Do you eat opium
now?"

At Hartford,
the keeper of a temperance hotel reading a Hebrew Bible in the
bar by means of a lexicon and an English version.

A negro,
respectably dressed, and well-mounted on horseback, travelling on
his own hook, calling for oats, and drinking a glass of
brandy-and-water at the bar, like any other Christian. A young
man from Wisconsin said, "I wish I had a thousand such
fellows in Alabama." It made a strange impression on
me,--the negro was really so human!--and to talk of owning a
thousand like him!

October 24th.--View from a
chamber of the Tremont of the brick edifice opposite, on the
other side of Beacon Street. At one of the lower windows, a
woman at work; at one above, a lady hemming a ruff or some such
lady-like thing. She is pretty, young, and married; for a little
boy comes to her knees, and she parts his hair, and caresses him
in a motherly way. A note on colored paper is brought her; and
she reads it, and puts it in her bosom. At another window, at
some depth within the apartment, a gentleman in a dressing-gown,
reading, and rocking in an easy-chair, etc., etc., etc. A rainy
day, and people passing with umbrellas disconsolately between the
spectator and these various scenes of indoor occupation and
comfort. With this sketch might be mingled and worked up some
story that was going on within the chamber where the spectator
was situated.

An autumnal
feature,--boys had swept together the fallen leaves from the elms
along the street in one huge pile, and had made a hollow,
nest-shaped, in this pile, in which three or four of them lay
curled, like young birds.

A
tombstone-maker, whom Miss B---y knew, used to cut cherubs on the
top of the tombstones, and had the art of carving the
cherubs' faces in the likeness of the deceased.

A child of
Rev. E. P---- was threatened with total blindness. A week after
the father had been informed of this, the child died; and, in the
mean while, his feelings had become so much the more interested
in the child, from its threatened blindness, that it was
infinitely harder to give it up. Had he not been aware of it
till after the child's death, it would probably have been a
consolation.

Singular
character of a gentleman (H. H---- Esq.) living in retirement in
Boston,--esteemed a man of nicest honor, and his seclusion
attributed to wounded feelings on account of the failure of his
firm in business. Yet it was discovered that this man had been
the mover of intrigues by which men in business had been ruined,
and their property absorbed, none knew how or by whom;
love-affairs had been broken off, and much other mischief done;
and for years he was not in the least suspected. He died
suddenly, soon after suspicion fell upon him. Probably it was
the love of management, of having an influence on affairs, that
produced these phenomena.

Character of a
man who, in himself and his external circumstances, shall be
equally and totally false: his fortune resting on baseless
credit,--his patriotism assumed,--his domestic affections, his
honor and honesty, all a sham. His own misery in the midst of
it,--it making the whole universe, heaven and earth alike, an
unsubstantial mockery to him.

Dr.
Johnson's penance in Uttoxeter Market. A man who does
penance in what might appear to lookers-on the most glorious and
triumphal circumstanceof his life. Each circumstance of the career
of an apparently successful man to be a penance and torture to
him on account of some fundamental error in early life.

A person to
catch fire-flies, and try to kindle his household fire with them.
It would be symbolical of something.

Thanksgiving
at the Worcester Lunatic Asylum. A ball and dance of the inmates
in the evening,--a furious lunatic dancing with the
principal's wife. Thanksgiving in an almshouse might make a
better sketch.

The house on
the eastern corner of North and Essex Streets [Salem], supposed
to have been built about 1640, had, say sixty years later, a
brick turret erected, wherein one of the ancestors of the present
occupants used to practise alchemy. He was the operative of a
scientific person in Boston, the director. There have been other
alchemists of old in this town,--one who kept his fire burning
seven weeks, and then lost the elixir by letting it go out.

An ancient
wineglass (Miss Ingersol's), long-stalked, with a small,
cup-like bowl, round which is wreathed a branch of grape-vine,
with a rich cluster of grapes, and leaves spread out. There is
also some kind of a bird flying. The whole is excellently cut or
engraved.

A person,
while awake and in the business of life, to think highly of
another, and place perfect confidence in him, but to be troubled
with dreams in which this seeming friend appears to act the part
of a most deadly enemy. Finally it is discovered that the
dream-character is the true one. The explanation would be--the
soul's instinctive perception.

"A person
to look back on a long life ill-spent, and to picture forth a
beautiful life which he would live, if he could be permitted to
begin his life over again. Finally to discover that he had only
been dreaming of old age,--that he was really young, and could
live such a life as he had pictured."

A newspaper,
purporting to be published in a family, and satirizing the
political and general world by advertisements, remarks on
domestic affairs,--advertisement of a lady's lost thimble,
etc.

L. H----. She
was unwilling to die, because she had no friends to meet her in
the other world. Her little son F. being very ill, on his
recovery she confessed a feeling of disappointment, having
supposed that he would have gone before, and welcomed her into
heaven!

H. L. C----
heard from a French Canadian a story of a young couple in Acadie.
On their marriage day, all the men of the Province were summoned
to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When
assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to be distributed
through New England,--among them the new bridegroom. His bride
set off in search of him,--wandered about New England all her
lifetime, and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom
on his death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her
likewise.

January
4th, 1839.--When scattered clouds are resting on the
bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly
region, earth being so intermixed with sky, and gradually
transformed into it.

A stranger,
dying, is buried; and after many years two strangers come in
search of his grave, and open it.

The strange
sensation of a person who feels himself an object of deep
interest, and close observation, and various construction of all
his actions, by another person.

Letters in the
shape of figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed
by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the
figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus
things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning,
according to the point of view.

"Passing
along the street, all muddy with puddles,and suddenly seeing the sky
reflected in these puddles in such a way as quite to conceal the
foulness of the street."

A young man in
search of happiness,--to be personified by a figure whom he
expects to meet in a crowd, and is to be recognized by certain
signs. All these signs are given by a figure in various garbs
and actions, but he does not recognize that this is the
sought-for person till too late.

If cities were
built by the sound of music, then some edifices would appear to
be constructed by grave, solemn tones,--others to have danced
forth to light, fantastic airs.

Familiar spirits,
according to Lilly, used to be worn in rings, watches,
sword-hilts. Thumb-rings were set with jewels of extraordinary
size.

"A story
there passeth of an Indian king that sent unto Alexander a fair
woman, fed with aconite and other poisons, with this intent
complexionally to destroy him!" --Sir T. Browne.

Dialogues of the
unborn, like dialogues of the dead,--or between two young
children.

A mortal symptom
for a person being to lose his own aspect and to take the family
lineaments, which were hidden deep in the healthful visage.
Perhaps aseeker
might thus recognize the man he had sought, after long
intercourse with him unknowingly.

To make a story
of all strange and impossible things,--as the Salamander, the
Phoenix.

The semblance of
a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain, or in the
fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturæ.
The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and by
and by a boy is born, whose features gradually assume the aspect
of that portrait. At some critical juncture, the resemblance is
found to be perfect. A prophecy may be connected.

A person to be
the death of his beloved in trying to raise her to more than
mortal perfection; yet this should be a comfort to him for having
aimed so highly and holily.

1840.--A man,
unknown, conscious of temptation to secret crimes, puts up a note
in church, desiring the prayers of the congregation for one so
tempted.

Some most secret
thing, valued and honored between lovers, to be hung up in public
places, andmade
the subject of remark by the city,--remarks, sneers, and
laughter.

To make a story
out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different
points of view, it should appear to change,--now an old man, now
an old woman,--a gunner, a farmer, or the Old Nick.

A
ground-sparrow's nest in the slope of a bank, brought to
view by mowing the grass, but still sheltered and comfortably
hidden by a blackberry-vine trailing over it. At first, four
brown-speckled eggs,--then two little bare young ones, which, on
the slightest noise, lift their heads, and open wide mouths for
food,--immediately dropping their heads, after a broad gape. The
action looks as if they were making a most earnest, agonized
petition. In another egg, as in a coffin, I could discern the
quiet, death-like form of the little bird. The whole thing had
something awful and mysterious in it.

A coroner's
inquest on a murdered man,--the gathering of the jury to be
described, and the characters of the members,--some with secret
guilt upon their souls.

To represent a
man as spending life and the intensest labor in the
accomplishment of some mechanical trifle,--as in making a
miniature coach to be drawn by fleas, or a dinner-service to be
put into a cherry-stone.

The love of
posterity is a consequence of the necessity of death. If a man
were sure of living forever here, he would not care about his
offspring.

The device of a
sundial for a monument over a grave, with some suitable
motto.

A man with the
right perception of things,--a feeling within him of what is true
and what is false. It might be symbolized by the talisman with
which, in fairy tales, an adventurer was enabled to distinguish
enchantments from realities.

A phantom of the
old royal governors, or some such shadowy pageant, on the night
of the evacuation of Boston by the British.

---- taking my
likeness, I said that such changes would come over my face that
she would not know me when we met again in heaven. "See if
I do not!" said she, smiling. There was the most peculiar
and beautiful humor in the point itself, and in her manner, that
can be imagined.

Little F. H----
used to look into E----'s mouth to see where her smiles came
from.

"There is no
Measure for Measure to my affections. If the earth fails me, I
can die, and go to GOD," said ----.

Selfishness is
one of the qualities apt to inspire love. This might be thought
out at great length.

[1839]

EXTRACTS FROM HIS PRIVATE LETTERS.

Boston,July 3d, 1839.--I do not mean to imply that I
am unhappy or discontented, for this is not the case. My life
only is a burden in the same way that it is to every toilsome
man; and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only a
night's sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I
shall be entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall
know how to sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have
risen at the dawn, and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor
turned my heavy footsteps homeward till eventide. Years hence,
perhaps, the experience that my heart is acquiring now will flow
out in truth and wisdom.

August
27th.--I have been stationed all day at the end of Long
Wharf, and I rather think that I had the most eligible situation
of anybody in Boston. I was aware that it must be intensely hot
in the midst of the city; but there was only a short space of
uncomfortable heat in my region, half-way towards the centre of
the harbor; and almost all the time there was a pure and
delightful breeze, fluttering and palpitating, sometimes shyly
kissing my brow, then dying away, and then rushing upon me in
livelier sport, so that I was fain to settle my straw hat more
tightly upon my head. Late in the afternoon, there was a sunny
shower, which came down so like a benediction that it seemed
ungrateful to take shelter in the cabin or to put up an umbrella.
Then there was a rainbow, or a large segment of one, so
exceedingly brilliant and of such long endurance that I almost
fancied it was stained into the sky, and would continue therepermanently. And
there were clouds floating all about,--great clouds and small, of
all glorious and lovely hues (save that imperial crimson which
was revealed to our united gaze),--so glorious, indeed, and so
lovely, that I had a fantasy of heaven's being broken into
fleecy fragments and dispersed through space, with its blest
inhabitants dwelling blissfully upon those scattered islands.

[1840]

February
7th, 1840.--What beautiful weather this is!--beautiful,
at least, so far as sun, sky, and atmosphere are concerned,
though a poor, wingless biped is sometimes constrained to wish
that he could raise himself a little above the earth. How much
mud and mire, how many pools of unclean water, how many slippery
footsteps, and perchance heavy tumbles, might be avoided, if we
could tread but six inches above the crust of this world.
Physically we cannot do this; our bodies cannot; but it seems to
me that our hearts and minds may keep themselves above moral
mud-puddles and other discomforts of the soul's pathway.

February
11th.--I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a
black little British schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end
of the city. Most of the time I paced the deck to keep myself
warm; for the wind (northeast, I believe) blew up through the
dock, as if it had been the pipe of a pair of bellows. The
vessel lying deep between two wharves, there was no more
delightful prospect, on the right hand and on the left, than the
posts and timbers, half immersed in the water, and covered with
ice, which the rising and falling of successive tides had left
upon them, so that they looked like immense icicles. Across the
water,however,
not more than half a mile off, appeared the Bunker Hill Monument;
and, what interested me considerably more, a church-steeple, with
the dial of a clock upon it, whereby I was enabled to measure the
march of the weary hours. Sometimes I descended into the dirty
little cabin of the schooner, and warmed myself by a red-hot
stove, among biscuit-barrels, pots and kettles, sea-chests, and
innumerable lumber of all sorts,--my olfactories, meanwhile,
being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe, which the captain,
or some one of his crew, was smoking. But at last came the
sunset, with delicate clouds, and a purple light upon the
islands; and I blessed it, because it was the signal of my
release.

February
12th.--All day long again have I been engaged in a very
black business,--as black as a coal; and, though my face and
hands have undergone a thorough purification, I feel not
altogether fit to hold communion with doves. Methinks my
profession is somewhat akin to that of a chimney-sweeper; but the
latter has the advantage over me, because, after climbing up
through the darksome flue of the chimney, he emerges into the
midst of the golden air, and sings out his melodies far over the
heads of the whole tribe of weary earth-plodders. My toil to-day
has been cold and dull enough; nevertheless, I was neither cold
nor dull.

March
15th.--I pray that in one year more I may find some way
of escaping from this unblest Custom House; for it is a very
grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices,--all, at least, that
are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do withpoliticians. Their
hearts wither away and die out of their bodies. Their
consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as
black as that, and which will stretch as much. One thing, if no
more, I have gained by my custom house experience,--to know a
politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought or power
of sympathy could have taught me, because the animal, or the
machine rather, is not in nature.

March
23d.--I do think that it is the doom laid upon me, of
murdering so many of the brightest hours of the day at the Custom
House, that makes such havoc with my wits, for here I am again
trying to write worthily, . . . yet with a sense as if all the
noblest part of man had been left out of my composition, or had
decayed out of it since my nature was given to my own keeping. .
. . Never comes any bird of Paradise into that dismal region. A
salt or even a coal ship is ten million times preferable; for
there the sky is above me, and the fresh breeze around me, and my
thoughts, having hardly anything to do with my occupation, are as
free as air.

Nevertheless, you
are not to fancy that the above paragraph gives a correct idea of
my mental and spiritual state. . . . It is only once in a
while that the image and desire of a better and happier life
makes me feel the iron of my chain; for, after all, a human
spirit may find no insufficiency of food fit for it, even in the
Custom House. And, with such materials as these, I do think and
feel and learn things that are worth knowing, and which I should
not know unless I had learned them there, so that the present
portion of my life shall not be quite left out of the sum of my
real existence. . . . It is good for me, on manyaccounts, that my
life has had this passage in it. I know much more than I did a
year ago. I have a stronger sense of power to act as a man among
men. I have gained worldly wisdom, and wisdom also that is not
altogether of this world. And, when I quit this earthly cavern
where I am now buried, nothing will cling to me that ought to be
left behind. Men will not perceive, I trust, by my look, or the
tenor of my thoughts and feelings, that I have been a custom
house officer.

April
7th.--It appears to me to have been the most
uncomfortable day that ever was inflicted on poor mortals. . .
. Besides the bleak, unkindly air, I have been plagued by two
sets of coal-shovelers at the same time, and have been obliged to
keep two separate tallies simultaneously. But I was conscious
that all this was merely a vision and a fantasy, and that, in
reality, I was not half frozen by the bitter blast, nor tormented
by those grimy coal-heavers, but that I was basking quietly in
the sunshine of eternity, . . . Any sort of bodily and earthly
torment may serve to make us sensible that we have a soul that is
not within the jurisdiction of such shadowy demons,--it separates
the immortal within us from the mortal. But the wind has blown
my brains into such confusion that I cannot philosophize now.

April
19th.--. . . What a beautiful day was yesterday! My
spirit rebelled against being confined in my darksome dungeon at
the Custom House. It seemed a sin,--a murder of the joyful young
day,--a quenching of the sunshine. Nevertheless, there I was
kept a prisoner till it was too late to fling myselfon a gentle wind,
and be blown away into the country. . . . When I shall be
again free, I will enjoy all things with the fresh simplicity of
a child of five years old. I shall grow young again, made all
over anew. I will go forth and stand in a summer shower, and all
the worldly dust that has collected on me shall be washed away at
once, and my heart will be like a bank of fresh flowers for the
weary to rest upon. . .
.

6 P.M.--I went
out to walk about an hour ago, and found it very pleasant, though
there was a somewhat cool wind. I went round and across the
Common, and stood on the highest point of it, where I could see
miles and miles into the country. Blessed be God for this green
tract, and the view which it affords, whereby we poor citizens
may be put in mind, sometimes, that all his earth is not composed
of blocks of brick houses, and of stone or wooden pavements.
Blessed be God for the sky, too, though the smoke of the city may
somewhat change its aspect,--but still it is better than if each
street were covered over with a roof. There were a good many
people walking on the mall,--mechanics apparently, and
shopkeepers' clerks, with their wives; and boys were rolling
on the grass, and I would have liked to lie down and roll
too.

April
30th.--. . . I arose this morning feeling more
elastic than I have throughout the winter; for the breathing of
the ocean air has wrought a very beneficial effect, . . . What
a beautiful, most beautiful afternoon this has been! It was a
real happiness to live. If I had been merely a vegetable,--a
hawthorn-bush, for instance,--I must have been happy in such an
air and sunshine; but, having a mind and a soul, . . . I
enjoyed somewhat more than merevegetable happiness. . . . The footsteps
of May can be traced upon the islands in the harbor, and I have
been watching the tints of green upon them gradually deepening,
till now they are almost as beautiful as they ever can be.

May
19th.--. . . Lights and shadows are continually
flitting across my inward sky, and I know neither whence they
come nor whither they go; nor do I inquire too closely into them.
It is dangerous to look too minutely into such phenomena. It is
apt to create a substance where at first there was a mere shadow.
. . . If at any time there should seem to be an expression
unintelligible from one soul to another, it is best not to strive
to interpret it in earthly language, but wait for the soul to
make itself understood; and, were we to wait a thousand years, we
need deem it no more time than we can spare. . . . It is not
that I have any love of mystery, but because I abhor it, and
because I have often felt that words may be a thick and darksome
veil of mystery between the soul and the truth which it seeks.
Wretched were we, indeed, if we had no better means of
communicating ourselves, no fairer garb in which to array our
essential being, than these poor rags and tatters of Babel. Yet
words are not without their use even for purposes of
explanation,--but merely for explaining outward acts and all
sorts of external things, leaving the soul's life and action
to explain itself in its own way.

What a misty
disquisition I have scribbled! I would not read it over for
sixpence.

May
29th.--Rejoice with me, for I am free from a load of
coal which has been pressing upon myshoulders throughout all the hot weather. I
am convinced that Christian's burden consisted of coal; and
no wonder he felt so much relieved, when it fell off and rolled
into the sepulchre. His load, however, at the utmost, could not
have been more than a few bushels, whereas mine was exactly one
hundred and thirty-five chaldrons and seven tubs.

May
30th.--. . . On board my salt-vessels and colliers
there are many things happening, many pictures which, in future
years, when I am again busy at the loom of fiction, I could weave
in; but my fancy is rendered so torpid by my ungenial way of life
that I cannot sketch off the scenes and portraits that interest
me, and I am forced to trust them to my memory, with the hope of
recalling them at some more favorable period. For these three or
four days I have been observing a little Mediterranean boy from
Malaga, not more than ten or eleven years old, but who is already
a citizen of the world, and seems to be just as gay and contented
on the deck of a Yankee coal-vessel as he could be while playing
beside his mother's door. It is really touching to see how
free and happy he is,--how the little fellow takes the whole wide
world for his home, and all mankind for his family. He talks
Spanish,--at least that is his native tongue; but he is also very
intelligible in English, and perhaps he likewise has smatterings
of the speech of other countries, whither the winds may have
wafted this little sea-bird. He is a Catholic; and yesterday
being Friday he caught some fish and fried them for his dinner in
sweet-oil, and really they looked so delicate that I almost
wished he would invite me to partake. Every once in a while he
undresses himself and leapsover-board, plunging down beneath the waves
as if the sea were as native to him as the earth. Then he runs
up the rigging of the vessel as if he meant to fly away through
the air. I must remember this little boy, and perhaps I may make
something more beautiful of him than these rough and imperfect
touches would promise.

June
11th.--. . . I could wish that the east-wind would
blow every day from ten o'clock till five; for there is
great refreshment in it to us poor mortals that toil beneath the
sun. We must not think too unkindly even of the east-wind. It
is not, perhaps, a wind to be loved, even in its benignest moods;
but there are seasons when I delight to feel its breath upon my
cheek, though it be never advisable to throw open my bosom and
take it into my heart, as I would its gentle sisters of the south
and west. To-day, if I had been on the wharves, the slight chill
of an east-wind would have been a blessing, like the chill of
death to a world-weary man.

. . . But this
has been one of the idlest days that I ever spent in Boston, . .
. In the morning, soon after breakfast, I went to the
Athenæum gallery, and, during the hour or two that I
stayed, not a single visitor came in. Some people were putting
up paintings in one division of the room; but I had the other all
to myself. There are two pictures there by our friend Sarah
Clarke,--scenes in Kentucky.

From the
picture-gallery I went to the reading-rooms of the
Athenæum, and there read the magazines till nearly twelve;
thence to the Custom House, and soon afterwards to dinner with
Colonel Hall; then back to the Custom House, but only for a
little while. There was nothing in the world to do, and so attwo o'clock I
came home and lay down, with the "Faerie Queene" in my
hand.

August
2lst.--Last night I slept like a child of five years
old, and had no dreams at all,--unless just before it was time to
rise, and I have forgotten what those dreams were. After I was
fairly awake this morning, I felt very bright and airy, and was
glad that I had been compelled to snatch two additional hours of
existence from annihilation. The sun's disk was but half
above the ocean's verge when I ascended the ship's
side. These early morning hours are very lightsome and quiet.
Almost the whole day I have been in the shade, reclining on a
pile of sails, so that the life and spirit are not entirely worn
out of me. . . . The wind has been east this
afternoon,--perhaps in the forenoon, too,--and I could not help
feeling refreshed, when the gentle chill of its breath stole over
my cheek. I would fain abominate the east-wind, . . . but it
persists in doing me kindly offices now and then. What a
perverse wind it is! Its refreshment is but another mode of
torment.

Salem,
Oct. 4th. Union Street [Family Mansion].--. . .
Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I used to sit in
days gone by. . . . Here I have written many tales,--many
that have been burned to ashes, many that doubtless deserved the
same fate. This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for
thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it;
and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I
should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this
chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonelyyouth was wasted
here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have
been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here
I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know
me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or
whether it would ever know me at all,--at least, till I were in
my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the
grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But
oftener I was happy,--at least, as happy as I then knew how to
be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, the
world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me
forth,--not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather
with a still, small voice,--and forth I went, but found nothing
in the world that I thought preferable to my old solitude till
now, . . . And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned
so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break
through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my
escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and
been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become
callous by rude encounters with the multitude.
. . . But living in solitude till the fulness of time was
come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my
heart. . . . I used to think I could imagine all passions,
all feelings, and states of the heart and mind; but how little
did I know! . . . Indeed, we are but shadows; we are not
endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is
but the thinnest substance of a dream,--till the heart be
touched. That touch creates us,--then we begin to be,--thereby
we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity. . . .

When we shall be
endowed with our spiritual bodies, I think that they will be so
constituted that we may send thoughts and feelings any distance
in no time at all, and transfuse them warm and fresh into the
consciousness of those whom we love, . . . But, after all,
perhaps it is not wise to intermix fantastic ideas with the
reality of affection. Let us content ourselves to be earthly
creatures, and hold communion of spirit in such modes as are
ordained to us. . . .

I was not at the
end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region,--my authority
having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the
captain and "gang" of shovelers aboard a coal-vessel.
I would you could have beheld the awful sternness of my visage
and demeanor in the execution of this momentous duty. Well,--I
have conquered the rebels, and proclaimed an amnesty; so
to-morrow I shall return to that paradise of measurers, the end
of Long Wharf,--not to my former salt-ship, she being now
discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me
well-nigh a fortnight longer, . . . Salt is white and
pure,--there is something holy in salt. . . .

I have observed
that butterflies--very broad-winged and magnificent
butterflies--frequently come on board of the salt-ship, where I
am at work. What have these bright strangers to do on Long
Wharf, where there are no flowers nor any green thing,--nothing
but brick storehouses, stone piers, black ships, and the bustle
of toilsome men, who neither look up to the blue sky, nor take
note of these wandering gems of the air? I cannot account for
them, unless they are the lovely fantasies of the mind.

November.--. . . How delightfully long
the evenings are now! I do not get intolerably tired any longer,
and my thoughts sometimes wander back to literature, and I have
momentary impulses to write stories. But this will not be at
present. The utmost that I can hope to do will be to portray
some of the characteristics of the life which I am now living,
and of the people with whom I am brought into contact, for future
use. . .
. The days are cold now, the air eager and nipping, yet it suits
my health amazingly. I feel as if I could run a hundred miles at
a stretch, and jump over all the houses that happen to be in my
way. . . .

I have never had
the good luck to profit much, or indeed any, by attending
lectures, so that I think the ticket had better be bestowed on
somebody who can listen to Mr. ---- more worthily. My evenings
are very precious to me, and some of them are unavoidably thrown
away in paying or receiving visits, or in writing letters of
business, and therefore I prize the rest as if the sands of the
hour-glass were gold or diamond dust.

I was invited to
dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday, with Miss Margaret
Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for
which I was very thankful.

April
1841.--. . . I have been busy all day, from early
breakfast-time till late in the afternoon; and old Father Time
has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont when I am
imprisoned within the walls of the Custom House. It has been abrisk, breezy day,
an effervescent atmosphere, and I have enjoyed it in all its
freshness,--breathing air which had not been breathed in advance
by the hundred thousand pairs of lungs which have common and
invisible property in the atmosphere of this great city. My
breath had never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from
the wilderness of ocean, . . . It was exhilarating to see the
vessels, how they bounded over the waves, while a sheet of foam
broke out around them. I found a good deal of enjoyment, too, in
the busy scene around me; for several vessels were disgorging
themselves (what an unseemly figure is this,
"disgorge," quotha, as if the vessel were sick) on the
wharf, and everybody seemed to be working with might and main.
It pleased me to think that I also had a part to act in the
material and tangible business of this life, and that a portion
of all this industry could not have gone on without my presence.
Nevertheless, I must not pride myself too much on my activity and
utilitarianism. I shall, doubtless, soon bewail myself at being
compelled to earn my bread by taking some little share in the
toils of mortal men, . . .

Articulate words
are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his
highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was
dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order
to return to that blessed state,

Brook Farm,
Oak Hill, April 13th, 1841.--. . . Here I am in
a polar Paradise! I know not how to interpret this aspect of
nature,--whether it be of good or evil omen to our enterprise.
But I reflect that the Plymouth pilgrims arrived in the midst
ofstorm, and
stepped ashore upon mountain snow-drifts; and, nevertheless, they
prospered, and became a great people,--and doubtless it will be
the same with us. I laud my stars, however, that you will not
have your first impressions of (perhaps) our future home from
such a day as this, . . . Through faith, I persist in
believing that Spring and Summer will come in their due season;
but the unregenerated man shivers within me, and suggests a doubt
whether I may not have wandered within the precincts of the
Arctic Circle, and chosen my heritage among everlasting snows, .
. . Provide yourself with a good stock of furs, and, if you can
obtain the skin of a polar bear, you will find it a very suitable
summer dress for this region. . . .

I have not yet
taken my first lesson in agriculture,
except that I went to see our cows foddered, yesterday
afternoon. We have eight of our own; and the number is now
increased by a transcendental heifer belonging to Miss Margaret
Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick over
the milk-pail. . . . I intend to convert myself into a
milkmaid this evening, but I pray Heaven that Mr. Ripley may be
moved to assign me the kindliest cow in the herd, otherwise I
shall perform my duty with fear and trembling.

I like my
brethren in affliction very well; and, could you see us sitting
round our table at meal-times, before the great kitchen fire, you
would call it a cheerful sight. Mrs. B---- is a most
comfortable woman to behold. She looks as if her ample person
were stuffed full of tenderness,--indeed, as if she were all one
great, kind heart.

* * *

April
14th, 10 A.M.--. . . I did not milk thecows last night,
because Mr. Ripley was afraid to trust them to my hands, or me
to their horns, I know not which. But this morning I have done
wonders. Before breakfast, I went out to the barn and began to
chop hay for the cattle, and with such "righteous
vehemence," as Mr. Ripley says, did I labor, that in the
space of ten minutes I broke the machine. Then I brought wood
and replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast,
and ate up a huge mound of buckwheat cakes. After breakfast, Mr.
Ripley put a four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave
me to understand was called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley
being armed with similar weapons, we all three commenced a
gallant attack upon a heap of manure. This office being
concluded, and I having purified myself, I sit down to finish
this letter. . . .

Miss
Fuller's cow hooks the other cows, and has made herself
ruler of the herd, and behaves in a very tyrannical manner. . .
. I shall make an excellent husbandman,--I feel the original Adam
reviving within me.

April
16th.--. . . Since I last wrote, there has been an
addition to our community of four gentlemen in sables, who
promise to be among our most useful and respectable members.
They arrived yesterday about noon. Mr. Ripley had proposed to
them to join us, no longer ago than that very morning. I had
some conversation with them in the afternoon, and was glad to
hear them express much satisfaction with their new abode and all
the arrangements. They do not appear to be very communicative,
however,--or perhaps it may be merely an external reserve, like
my own, to shield their delicacy. Several of theirprominent
characteristics, as well as their black attire, lead me to
believe that they are members of the clerical profession; but I
have not yet ascertained from their own lips what has been the
nature of their past lives. I trust to have much pleasure in
their society, and, sooner or later, that we shall all of us
derive great strength from our intercourse with them. I cannot
too highly applaud the readiness with which these four gentlemen
in black have thrown aside all the fopperies and flummeries which
have their origin in a false state of society. When I last saw
them, they looked as heroically regardless of the stains and
soils incident to our profession as I did when I emerged from the
gold-mine, . . .

I have milked a
cow!!! . . . The herd has rebelled against the usurpation of
Miss Fuller's heifer; and, whenever they are turned out of
the barn, she is compelled to take refuge under our protection.
So much did she impede my labors by keeping close to me, that I
found it necessary to give her two or three gentle pats with a
shovel; but still she preferred to trust herself to my tender
mercies, rather than venture among the horns of the herd. She is
not an amiable cow; but she has a very intelligent face, and
seems to be of a reflective cast of character. I doubt not that
she will soon perceive the expediency of being on good terms with
the rest of the sisterhood.

I have not yet
been twenty yards from our house and barn; but I begin to
perceive that this is a beautiful place. The scenery is of a
mild and placid character, with nothing bold in its aspect; but I
think its beauties will grow upon us, and make us love it the
more, the longer we live here. There is a brook, so near the
house that we shall be able to hear its ripplein the summer evenings, . . .
but, for agricultural purposes, it has been made to flow in a
straight and rectangular fashion, which does it infinite damage
as a picturesque object. . . .

It was a moment
or two before I could think whom you meant by Mr. Dismal View.
Why, he is one of the best of the brotherhood, so far as
cheerfulness goes; for if he do not laugh himself, he makes the
rest of us laugh continually. He is the quaintest and queerest
personage you ever saw,--full of dry jokes, the humor of which is
so incorporated with the strange twistifications of his
physiognomy, that his sayings ought to be written down,
accompanied with illustrations by Cruikshank. Then he keeps
quoting innumerable scraps of Latin, and makes classical
allusions, while we are turning over the gold-mine; and the
contrast between the nature of his employment and the character
of his thoughts is irresistibly ludicrous.

I have written
this epistle in the parlor, while Farmer Ripley, and Farmer
Farley, and Farmer Dismal View were talking about their
agricultural concerns. So you will not wonder if it is not a
classical piece of composition, either in point of thought or
expression.

April
22d.--. . . What an abominable hand do I scribble!
but I have been chopping wood, and turning a grindstone all the
forenoon; and such occupations are likely to disturb the
equilibrium of the muscles and sinews. It is an endless surprise
to me how much work there is to be done in the world; but, thank
God, I am able to do my share of it,--and my abilityincreases daily.
What a great, broad-shouldered, elephantine personage I shall
become by and by!

I milked two cows
this morning, and would send you some of the milk, only that it
is mingled with that which was drawn forth by Mr. Dismal View
and the rest of the brethren.

April
28th.--. . . I was caught by a cold during my visit
to Boston. It has not affected my whole frame, but took entire
possession of my head, as being the weakest and most vulnerable
part. Never did anybody sneeze with such vehemence and
frequency; and my poor brain has been in a thick fog; or, rather,
it seemed as if my head were stuffed with coarse wool.
. . . Sometimes I wanted to wrench it off, and give it
a great kick, like a football.

This annoyance
has made me endure the bad weather with even less than ordinary
patience; and my faith was so far exhausted that, when they told
me yesterday that the sun was setting clear, I would not even
turn my eyes towards the west. But this morning I am made all
over anew, and have no greater remnant of my cold than will serve
as an excuse for doing no work to-day.

* * *

The family has
been dismal and dolorous throughout the storm. The night before
last, William Allen was stung by a wasp on the eyelid; whereupon
the whole side of his face swelled to an enormous magnitude, so
that, at the breakfast-table, one half of him looked like a blind
giant (the eye being closed), and the other half had such a
sorrowful and ludicrous aspect that I was constrained to laugh
out of sheer pity.The same day, a colony of wasps was
discovered in my chamber, where they had remained throughout the
winter, and were now just bestirring themselves, doubtless with
the intention of stinging me from head to foot. .
. . A similar discovery was made in Mr. Farley's room. In
short, we seem to have taken up our abode in a wasps' nest.
Thus you see a rural life is not one of unbroken quiet and
serenity.

If the middle of
the day prove warm and pleasant, I promise myself to take a walk,
. . . I have taken one walk with Mr. Farley; and I could not
have believed that there was such seclusion at so short a
distance from a great city. Many spots seem hardly to have been
visited for ages,--not since John Eliot preached to the Indians
here. If we were to travel a thousand miles, we could not escape
the world more completely than we can here.

* * *

I read no
newspapers, and hardly remember who is President, and feel as if
I had no more concern with what other people trouble themselves
about than if I dwelt in another planet.

May
1st.--. . . Every day of my life makes me feel more
and more how seldom a fact is accurately stated; how, almost
invariably, when a story has passed through the mind of a third
person, it becomes, so far as regards the impression that it
makes in further repetitions, little better than a falsehood, and
this, too, though the narrator be the most truth-seeking person
in existence. How marvellous the tendency is! . . . Is truth
a fantasy which we are to pursue forever and never grasp?

* * *

My cold has
almost entirely departed. Were it a sunny day, I should consider
myself quite fit for labors out of doors; but as the ground is so
damp, and the atmosphere so chill, and the sky so sullen, I
intend to keep myself on the sick-list this one day longer, more
especially as I wish to read Carlyle on Heroes.

There has been
but one flower found in this vicinity,--and that was an anemone,
a poor, pale, shivering little flower, that had crept under a
stone-wall for shelter. Mr. Farley found it, while taking a
walk with me.

. . . This is
May-Day! Alas, what a difference between the ideal and the
real!

May
4th.-- . . . My cold no longer troubles me, and all
the morning I have been at work under the clear, blue sky, on a
hill-side. Sometimes it almost seemed as if I were at work in
the sky itself, though the material in which I wrought was the
ore from our gold-mine. Nevertheless, there is nothing so
unseemly and disagreeable in this sort of toil as you could
think. It defiles the hands, indeed, but not the soul. This
gold ore is a pure and wholesome substance, else our mother
Nature would not devour it so readily, and derive so much
nourishment from it, and return such a rich abundance of good
grain and roots in requital of it.

The farm is
growing very beautiful now,--not that we yet see anything of the
peas and potatoes which we have planted; but the grass blushes
green on the slopes and hollows. I wrote that word
"blush" almost unconsciously; so we will let it go as
an inspired utterance. When I go forth afield, . . . I look
beneath the stone-walls, where the verdure is richest, inhopes that a little
company of violets, or some solitary bud, prophetic of the
summer, may be there. . . . But not a wild-flower have I yet
found: One of the boys gathered some yellow cowslips last Sunday;
but I am well content not to have found them, for they are not
precisely what I should like to send to you, though they deserve
honor and praise, because they come to us when no others will.
We have our parlor here dressed in evergreen as at Christmas.
That beautiful little flower-vase . . . stands on Mr.
Ripley's study-table, at which I am now writing. It
contains some daffodils and some willow-blossoms. I brought it
here rather than keep it in my chamber, because I never sit
there, and it gives me many pleasant emotions to look round and
be surprised--for it is often a surprise, though I well know that
it is there--by something connected with the idea [of a friend] .

* * *

I do not believe
that I should be patient here if I were not engaged in a
righteous and heaven-blessed way of life. When I was in the
Custom House and then at Salem I was not half so patient. . .
.

We had some
tableaux last evening, the principal characters being sustained
by Mr. Farley and Miss Ellen Slade. They went off very well. .
. .

I fear it is time
for me--sod-compelling as I am--to take the field again.

May
11th.--. . . This morning I arose at milking-time in
good trim for work; and we have been employed partly in an Augean
labor of clearing out a wood-shed, and partly in carting loads of
oak. This afternoon I hope to have something to do in the field,
for these jobs about the house are not at all to my taste.

June
1st.--. . . I have been too busy to write a long
letter by this opportunity, for I think this present life of mine
gives me an antipathy to pen and ink, even more than my Custom
House experience did.
. . . In the midst of toil, or after a hard day's work
in the gold-mine, my soul obstinately refuses to be poured out on
paper. That abominable gold-mine! Thank God, we anticipate
getting rid of its treasures in the course of two or three days!
Of all hateful places that is the worst, and I shall never
comfort myself for having spent so many days of blessed sunshine
there. It is my opinion that a man's soul may be buried and
perish under a dung-heap, or in a furrow of the field, just as
well as under a pile of money.

Mr. George
Bradford will probably be here to-day, so that there will be no
danger of my being under the necessity of laboring more than I
like hereafter. Meantime my health is perfect, and my spirits
buoyant, even in the gold-mine.

August
12th.--. . . I am very well, and not at all weary,
for yesterday's rain gave us a holiday; and, moreover, the
labors of the farm are not so pressing as they have been. And,
joyful thought! in a little more than a fortnight I shall be
free from my bondage,--. . . free to enjoy Nature,--free to
think and feel! . . . Even my Custom House experience was not
such a thraldom and weariness; my mind and heart were free. Oh,
labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it
without becoming proportionably brutified! Is it a praiseworthy
matter that I have spent five golden months in providing food for
cows and horses? It is not so.

August
18th.--I am very well, only somewhat tired with walking
half a dozen miles immediately after breakfast, and raking hay
ever since. We shall quite finish haying this week, and then
there will be no more very hard or constant labor during the one
other week that I shall remain a slave.

August
22d.--. . . I had an indispensable engagement in the
bean-field, whither, indeed, I was glad to betake myself, in
order to escape a parting scene with ----. He was quite out of
his wits the night before, and I sat up with him till long past
midnight. The farm is pleasanter now that he is gone; for his
unappeasable wretchedness threw a gloom over everything. Since I
last wrote, we have done haying, and the remainder of my bondage
will probably be light. It will be a long time, however, before
I shall know how to make a good use of leisure, either as regards
enjoyment or literary occupation. . . .

It is extremely
doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating his
community on this farm. He can bring Mr. E---- to no terms, and
the more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to
be from a settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves;
for I can see few or no signs that Providence purposes to give us
a home here. I am weary, weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many
ages. Whatever may be my gifts, I have not hitherto shown a
single one that may avail to gather gold. I confess that I have
strong hopes of good from this arrangement with M----; but when I
look at the scanty avails of my past literary efforts, I do not
feel authorized to expect much from the future. Well, we shall
see. Other persons have bought large estates and builtsplendid mansions
with such little books as I mean to write; so that perhaps it is
not unreasonable to hope that mine may enable me to build a
little cottage, or, at least, to buy or hire one. But I am
becoming more and more convinced that we must not lean upon this
community. Whatever is to be done must be done by my own
undivided strength. I shall not remain here through the winter,
unless with an absolute certainty that there will be a house
ready for us in the spring. Otherwise, I shall return to
Boston,--still, however, considering myself an associate of the
community, so that we may take advantage of any more favorable
aspect of affairs. How much depends on these little books!
Methinks if anything could draw out my whole strength, it would
be the motives that now press upon me. Yet, after all, I must
keep these considerations out of my mind, because an external
pressure always disturbs instead of assisting me.

Salem,September 3d.--. . . But really I should
judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook Farm; and I take
this to be one proof that my life there was an unnatural and
unsuitable, and therefore an unreal, one. It already looks like
a dream behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the
community; there has been a spectral Appearance there, sounding
the horn at daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes,
and raking hay, toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to
assume my name. But this spectre was not myself. Nevertheless,
it is somewhat remarkable that my hands have, during the past
summer, grown very brown and rough, insomuch that many people
persist in believing that I, after all, was the aforesaid
spectral horn-sounder, cow-milker,potato-hoer, and hay-raker. But such people
do not know a reality from a shadow. Enough of nonsense. I know
not exactly how soon I shall return to the farm. Perhaps not
sooner than a fortnight from to-morrow.

Salem,September 14th.--. . . Master Cheever is a
very good subject for a sketch, especially if he be portrayed in
the very act of executing judgment on an evil-doer. The little
urchin may be laid across his knee, and his arms and legs, and
whole person indeed, should be flying all abroad, in an agony of
nervous excitement and corporeal smart. The Master, on the other
hand, must be calm, rigid, without anger or pity, the very
personification of that immitigable law whereby suffering follows
sin. Meantime the lion's head should have a sort of sly
twist on one side of its mouth, and a wink of one eye, in order
to give the impression that, after all, the crime and the
punishment are neither of them the most serious things in the
world. I could draw the sketch myself, if I had but the use of
----'s magic fingers.

Then the Acadians
will do very well for the second sketch. They might be
represented as just landing on the wharf; or as presenting
themselves before Governor Shirley, seated in the great chair.
Another subject might be old Cotton Mather, venerable in a
three-cornered hat and other antique attire, walking the streets
of Boston, and lifting up his hands to bless the people, while
they all revile him. An old dame should be seen, flinging water,
or emptying some vials of medicine, on his head from the latticed
window of an old-fashioned house; and all around must be tokens
of pestilence and mourning,--as a coffin borne along,--a woman or
children weeping on a doorstep. Can the tolling of the Old South
bell be painted?

If not this, then
the military council, holden at Boston by the Earl of Loudon and
other captains and governors, might be taken,--his lordship in
the great chair, an old-fashioned, military figure, with a star
on his breast. Some of Louis XV.'s commanders will give the
costume. On the table, and scattered about the room, must be
symbols of warfare,--swords, pistols, plumed hats, a drum,
trumpet, and rolled-up banner in one heap. It were not amiss to
introduce the armed figure of an Indian chief, as taking part in
the council,--or standing apart from the English, erect and
stern.

Now for Liberty
Tree. There is an engraving of that famous vegetable in
Snow's History of Boston. If represented, I see not what
scene can be beneath it, save poor Mr. Oliver, taking the oath.
He must have on a bag-wig, ruffled sleeves, embroidered coat, and
all such ornaments, because he is the representative of
aristocracy and an artificial system. The people may be as rough
and wild as the fancy can make them; nevertheless, there must be
one or two grave, puritanical figures in the midst. Such an one
might sit in the great chair, and be an emblem of that stern,
considerate spirit which brought about the Revolution. But this
would be a hard subject.

September 16th.--. . . . I
do not very well recollect Monsieur du Miroir, but, as to Mrs.
Bullfrog, I give her up to the severest reprehension. The story
was written as a mere experiment in that style; it did not come
from any depth within me,--neither my heart nor mind had anything
to do with it. I recollect that the Man of Adamant seemed a fine
idea tome when I
looked at it prophetically; but I failed in giving shape and
substance to the vision which I saw. I don't think it can
be very good. . . .

I cannot believe
all these stories about ----, because such a rascal never could
be sustained and countenanced by respectable men. I take him to
be neither better nor worse than the average of his tribe.
However, I intend to have all my copyrights taken out in my own
name; and, if he cheat me once, I will have nothing more to do
with him, but will straightway be cheated by some other
publisher,--that being, of course, the only alternative.

* * *

Governor
Shirley's young French wife might be the subject of one of
the cuts. She should sit in the great chair,--perhaps with a
dressing-glass before her,--and arrayed in all manner of
fantastic finery, and with an outré French
air, while the old Governor is leaning fondly over her, and a
puritanic councillor or two are manifesting their disgust in the
background. A negro footman and a French waiting-maid might be
in attendance.

* * *

In Liberty Tree
might be a vignette, representing the chair in a very shattered,
battered, and forlorn condition, after it had been ejected from
Hutchinson's house. This would serve to impress the reader
with the woful vicissitudes of sublunary things. . . .

Did you ever
behold such a vile scribble as I write since I became a farmer?
My chirography always was abominable, but now it is
outrageous.

Brook Farm,
September 22d, 1841.-- . . . Here I am again,
slowly adapting myself to the life of thisqueer community, whence I seem to
have been absent half a lifetime,--so utterly have I grown apart
from the spirit and manners of the place. .
. . I was most kindly received; and the fields and woods looked
very pleasant in the bright sunshine of the day before yesterday.
I have a friendlier disposition towards the farm, now that I am
no longer obliged to toil in its stubborn furrows. Yesterday and
to-day, however, the weather has been intolerable,--cold, chill,
sullen, so that it is impossible to be on kindly terms with
Mother Nature. . . .

I doubt whether I
shall succeed in writing another volume of Grandfather's
Library while I remain here. I have not the sense of perfect
seclusion which has always been essential to my power of
producing anything. It is true, nobody intrudes into my room;
but still I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is settled; everything
is but beginning to arrange itself, and though I would seem to
have little to do with aught beside my own thoughts, still I
cannot but partake of the ferment around me. My mind will not be
abstracted. I must observe, and think, and feel, and content
myself with catching glimpses of things which may be wrought out
hereafter. Perhaps it will be quite as well that I find myself
unable to set seriously about literary occupation for the
present. It will be good to have a longer interval between my
labor of the body and that of the mind. I shall work to the
better purpose after the beginning of November. Meantime I shall
see these people and their enterprise under a new point of view,
and perhaps be able to determine whether we have any call to cast
in our lot among them.

* * *

I do wish the
weather would put off this sulky mood. Had it not been for the
warmth and brightness of Monday, when I arrived here, I should
have supposed that all sunshine had left Brook Farm forever. I
have no disposition to take long walks in such a state of the
sky; nor have I any buoyancy of spirit. I am a very dull person
just at this time.

September 25th.--. . . One
thing is certain. I cannot and will not spend the winter here.
The time would be absolutely thrown away so far as regards any
literary labor to be performed.
. . .

The intrusion of
an outward necessity into labors of the imagination and intellect
is, to me, very painful. . . .

I had rather a
pleasant walk to a distant meadow a day or two ago, and we found
white and purple grapes in great abundance, ripe, and gushing
with rich, pure juice when the hand pressed the clusters. Did
you know what treasures of wild grapes there are in this land?
If we dwell here, we will make our own wine, . .
.

September 27th.--. . . Now,
as to the affair with ----, I fully confide in your opinion that
he intends to make an unequal bargain with poor, simple, innocent
me,--never having doubted this myself. But how is he to
accomplish it? I am not, nor shall be, the least in his power,
whereas he is, to a certain extent, in mine. He might announce
his projected Library, with me for the editor, in all the
newspapers in the universe; but still I could not be bound to
become the editor, unless by my own act; nor should I have the
slightest scruple in refusing to be so, at the lastmoment, if he
persisted in treating me with injustice. Then, as for his
printing "Grandfather's Chair," I have the
copyright in my own hands, and could and would prevent the sale,
or make him account to me for the profits, in case of need.
Meantime he is making arrangements for publishing the Library,
contracting with other booksellers, and with printers and
engravers, and, with every step, making it more difficult for
himself to draw back. I, on the other hand, do nothing which I
should not do if the affair with--were at an end; for, if I write
a book, it will be just as available for some other publisher as
for him. Instead of getting me into his power by this delay, he
has trusted to my ignorance and simplicity, and has put
himself in my power.

He is not
insensible of this. At our last interview, he himself introduced
the subject of the bargain, and appeared desirous to close it.
But I was not prepared,--among other reasons, because I do not
yet see what materials I shall have for the republications in the
Library; the works that he has shown me being ill adapted for
that purpose; and I wish first to see some French and German
books which he has sent for to New York. And, before concluding
the bargain, I have promised George Hillard to consult him, and
let him do the business. Is not this consummate discretion? and
am I not perfectly safe? . . . I look at the matter with
perfect composure, and see all round my own position, and know
that it is impregnable.

* * *

I was elected to
two high offices last night,--viz. to be a trustee of the Brook
Farm estate, and Chairman of the Committee of Finance! . . .
From the nature of my office, I shall have the chief directionof all the money
affairs of the community, the making of bargains, the supervision
of receipts and expenditures, etc., etc., etc. . . .

My accession to
these august offices does not at all decide the question of my
remaining here permanently. I told Mr. Ripley that I could not
spend the winter at the farm, and that it was quite uncertain
whether I returned in the spring, . . .

Take no part, I
beseech you, in these magnetic miracles. I am unwilling that a
power should be exercised on you of which we know neither the
origin nor consequence, and the phenomena of which seem rather
calculated to bewilder us than to teach us any truths about the
present or future state of being. . . . Supposing that the
power arises from the transfusion of one spirit into another, it
seems to me that the sacredness of an individual is violated by
it; there would be an intruder into the holy of holies, . . .
I have no faith whatever that people are raised to the seventh
heaven, or to any heaven at all, or that they gain any insight
into the mysteries of life beyond death, by means of this strange
science. Without distrusting that the phenomena have really
occurred, I think that they are to be accounted for as the result
of a material and physical, not of a spiritual, influence. Opium
has produced many a brighter vision of heaven, I fancy, and just
as susceptible of proof, as these. They are dreams. . . .
And what delusion can be more lamentable and mischievous, than to
mistake the physical and material for the spiritual? What so
miserable as to lose the soul's true, though hidden,
knowledge and consciousness of heaven in the mist of an
earth-born vision? If we would know what heaven is before we
come thither, let us retire into the depths ofour own spirits, and we shall
find it there among holy thoughts and feelings; but let us not
degrade high heaven and its inhabitants into any such symbols and
forms as Miss L---- describes; do not let an earthly effluence
from Mrs. P----'s corporeal system bewilder and perhaps
contaminate, something spiritual and sacred. I should as soon
think of seeking revelations of the future state in the
rottenness of the grave,--where so many do seek it, . . .

The view which I
take of this matter is caused by no want of faith in mysteries;
but from a deep reverence of the soul, and of the mysteries which
it knows within itself, but never transmits to the earthly eye
and ear. Keep the imagination sane,--that is one of the truest
conditions of communion with heaven.

Brook Farm,
September 26th.--A walk this morning along the
Needham road. A clear, breezy morning, after nearly a week of
cloudy and showery weather. The grass is much more fresh and
vivid than it was last month, and trees still retain much of
their verdure, though here and there is a shrub or a bough
arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the midst of a
beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toad-stools which had sprung up
probably during the night.

The houses in
this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long,
sloping roofs, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and
ending in a lofty peak. Some of them have huge old elms
overshadowing the yard. One may see the family sleigh near the
door, it having stood there all through the summer sunshine, and
perhaps with weeds sprouting through the crevices of its bottom,
the growth of the months since snow departed. Old barns, patched
and supportedby
timbers leaning against the sides, and stained with the excrement
of past ages.

In the forenoon I
walked along the edge of the meadow towards Cow Island. Large
trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green
pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease
grazing when an intruder appears, and look at him with long and
wary observation, then bend their heads to the pasture again.
Where the firm ground of the pasture ceases, the meadow
begins,--loose, spongy, yielding to the tread, sometimes
permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over
ankles in water. Cattle-paths, somewhat firmer than the general
surface, traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the
meadow. This shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples,
and other trees, with here and there white-pines of larger
growth. The whole is tangled and wild and thick-set, so that it
is necessary to part the nestling stems and branches, and go
crashing through. There are creeping plants of various sorts
which clamber up the trees; and some of them have changed color
in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low
grounds, so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves
twining up to the top of a green tree, intermingling its bright
hues with their verdure, as if all were of one piece. Sometimes,
instead of scarlet, the spiral wreath is of a golden yellow.

Within the verge
of the meadow, mostly near the firm shore of pasture ground, I
found several grapevines, hung with an abundance of large purple
grapes. The vines had caught hold of maples and alders, and
climbed to the summit, curling round about and interwreathing
their twisted folds in so intimate amanner that it was not easy to tell the
parasite from the supporting tree or shrub. Sometimes the same
vine had enveloped several shrubs, and caused a strange, tangled
confusion, converting all these poor plants to the purpose of its
own support, and hindering their growing to their own benefit and
convenience. The broad vine-leaves, some of them yellow or
yellowish-tinged, were seen apparently growing on the same stems
with the silver-mapled leaves, and those of the other shrubs,
thus married against their will by the conjugal twine; and the
purple clusters of grapes hung down from above and in the midst,
so that one might "gather grapes," if not "of
thorns," yet of as alien bushes.

One vine had
ascended almost to the tip of a large white-pine, spreading its
leaves and hanging its purple clusters among all its
boughs,--still climbing and clambering, as if it would not be
content till it had crowned the very summit with a wreath of its
own foliage and bunches of grapes. I mounted high into the tree,
and ate the fruit there, while the vine wreathed still higher
into the depths above my head. The grapes were sour, being not
yet fully ripe. Some of them, however, were sweet and pleasant.

September 27th.--A ride to
Brighton yesterday morning, it being the day of the weekly
cattle-fair. William Allen and myself went in a wagon, carrying
a calf to be sold at the fair. The calf had not had his
breakfast, as his mother had preceded him to Brighton, and he
kept expressing his hunger and discomfort by loud, sonorous baas,
especially when we passed any cattle in the fields or in the
road. The cows, grazing within hearing, expressed great
interest,and some
of them came galloping to the roadside to behold the calf.
Little children, also, on their way to school, stopped to laugh
and point at poor little Bossie. He was a prettily behaved
urchin, and kept thrusting his hairy muzzle between William and
myself, apparently wishing to be stroked and patted. It was an
ugly thought that his confidence in human nature, and nature in
general, was to be so ill rewarded as by cutting his throat, and
selling him in quarters. This, I suppose, has been his fate
before now!

It was a
beautiful morning, clear as crystal, with an invigorating, but
not disagreeable coolness. The general aspect of the country was
as green as summer,--greener indeed than mid or latter summer,
and there were occasional interminglings of the brilliant hues of
autumn, which made the scenery more beautiful, both visibly and
in sentiment. We saw no absolutely mean nor poor-looking abodes
along the road. There were warm and comfortable farm-houses,
ancient, with the porch, the sloping roof, the antique peak, the
clustered chimney, of old times; and modern cottages, smart and
tasteful; and villas, with terraces before them, and dense shade,
and wooden urns on pillars, and other such tokens of gentility.
Pleasant groves of oak and walnut, also, there were, sometimes
stretching along valleys, sometimes ascending a hill and clothing
it all round, so as to make it a great clump of verdure.
Frequently we passed people with cows, oxen, sheep, or pigs for
Brighton Fair.

On arriving at
Brighton, we found the village thronged with people, horses, and
vehicles. Probably there is no place in New England where the
character of an agricultural population may be so well studied.Almost all the
farmers within a reasonable distance make it a point, I suppose,
to attend Brighton Fair pretty frequently, if not on business,
yet as amateurs. Then there are all the cattle-people and
butchers who supply the Boston market, and dealers from far and
near; and every man who has a cow or a yoke of oxen, whether to
sell or buy, goes to Brighton on Monday. There were a thousand
or two of cattle in the extensive pens belonging to the
tavern-keeper, besides many that were standing about. One could
hardly stir a step without running upon the horns of one dilemma
or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram. The yeomen
appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen them
anywhere else, except, indeed, at labor,--more so than at
musterings and such gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a
sort of festal day, as well as a day of business. Most of the
people were of a bulky make, with much bone and muscle, and some
good store of fat, as if they had lived on flesh-diet; with
mottled faces, too, hard and red, like those of persons who
adhered to the old fashion of spirit-drinking. Great,
round-paunched country squires were there too, sitting under the
porch of the tavern, or waddling about, whip in hand, discussing
the points of the cattle. There were also gentlemen-farmers,
neatly, trimly, and fashionably dressed, in handsome surtouts,
and trousers strapped under their boots. Yeomen, too, in their
black or blue Sunday suits, cut by country tailors, and awkwardly
worn. Others (like myself) had on the blue stuff frocks which
they wear in the fields, the most comfortable garments that ever
were invented. Country loafers were among the throng,--men who
looked wistfully at the liquors in the bar, and waited for some
friend to invite them to drink,--poor, shabby, out-at-elbowed devils. Also,
dandies from the city, corseted and buckramed, who had come to
see the humors of Brighton Fair. All these, and other varieties
of mankind, either thronged the spacious bar-room of the hotel,
drinking, smoking, talking, bargaining, or walked about among the
cattle-pens, looking with knowing eyes at the horned people. The
owners of the cattle stood near at hand, waiting for offers.
There was something indescribable in their aspect, that showed
them to be the owners, though they mixed among the crowd. The
cattle, brought from a hundred separate farms, or rather a
thousand, seemed to agree very well together, not quarrelling in
the least. They almost all had a history, no doubt, if they
could but have told it. The cows had each given her milk to
support families,--had roamed the pastures, and come home to the
barn-yard, had been looked upon as a sort of member of the
domestic circle, and was known by a name, as Brindle or Cherry.
The oxen, with their necks bent by the heavy yoke, had toiled in
the plough-field and in haying-time for many years, and knew
their master's stall as well as the master himself knew his
own table. Even the young steers and the little calves had
something of domestic sacredness about them; for children had
watched their growth, and petted them, and played with them. And
here they all were, old and young, gathered from their thousand
homes to Brighton Fair; whence the great chance was that they
would go to the slaughter-house, and thence be transmitted, in
surloins, joints, and such pieces, to the tables of the Boston
folk.

William Allen had
come to buy four little pigs to take the places of four who have
now grown large at our farm, and are to be fatted and killed
within a fewweeks. There were several hundreds, in pens
appropriated to their use, grunting discordantly, and apparently
in no very good humor with their companions or the world at
large. Most or many of these pigs had been imported from the
State of New York. The drovers set out with a large number, and
peddle them along the road till they arrive at Brighton with the
remainder. William selected four, and bought them at five cents
per pound. These poor little porkers were forthwith seized by
the tails, their legs tied, and they thrown into our wagon, where
they kept up a continual grunt and squeal till we got home. Two
of them were yellowish, or light gold-color, the other two were
black and white speckled; and all four of very piggish aspect and
deportment. One of them snapped at William's finger most
spitefully and bit it to the bone.

All the scene of
the Fair was very characteristic and peculiar,--cheerful and
lively, too, in the bright, warm sun. I must see it again; for
it ought to be studied.

September 28th.--A picnic party
in the woods, yesterday, in honor of little Frank Dana's
birthday, he being six years old. I strolled out, after dinner,
with Mr. Bradford, and in a lonesome glade we met the apparition
of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of blanket,
feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the same
time, a young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and
proposed to tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the
goddess Diana let fly an arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand.
The fortune-teller and goddess were in fine contrast, Diana being
a blonde, fair, quiet,with a moderate composure; and the gypsy (O.
G.) a bright, vivacious, dark-haired, rich-complexioned
damsel,--both of them very pretty, at least pretty enough to make
fifteen years enchanting. Accompanied by these denizens of the
wild wood, we went onward, and came to a company of fantastic
figures, arranged in a ring for a dance or a game. There was a
Swiss girl, an Indian squaw, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one
or two foresters, and several people in Christian attire, besides
children of all ages. Then followed childish games, in which the
grown people took part with mirth enough,--while I, whose nature
it is to be a mere spectator both of sport and serious business,
lay under the trees and looked on. Meanwhile, Mr. Emerson and
Miss Fuller, who arrived an hour or two before, came forth into
the little glade where we were assembled. Here followed much
talk. The ceremonies of the day concluded with a cold collation
of cakes and fruit. All was pleasant enough,--an excellent piece
of work,--"would't were done!" It has left a
fantastic impression on my memory, this intermingling of wild and
fabulous characters with real and homely ones, in the secluded
nook of the woods. I remember them, with the sunlight breaking
through overshadowing branches, and they appearing and
disappearing confusedly,--perhaps starting out of the earth; as
if the every-day laws of nature were suspended for this
particular occasion. There were the children, too, laughing and
sporting about, as if they were at home among such strange
shapes,--and anon bursting into loud uproar of lamentation, when
the rude gambols of the merry archers chanced to overturn them.
And apart, with a shrewd, Yankee observation of the scene, stands
our friend Orange, a thick-set, sturdy figure, enjoying the fun
well enough, yet, rather laughing with a perception of its
nonsensicalness than at all entering into the spirit of the
thing.

This morning I
have been helping to gather apples. The principal farm labors at
this time are ploughing for winter rye, and breaking up the
greensward for next year's crop of potatoes, gathering
squashes, and not much else, except such year-round employments
as milking. The crop of rye, to be sure, is in process of being
threshed, at odd intervals.

I ought to have
mentioned among the diverse and incongruous growths of the picnic
party our two Spanish boys from Manilla,--Lucas, with his heavy
features and almost mulatto complexion; and José,
slighter, with rather a feminine face,--not a gay, girlish one,
but grave, reserved, eying you sometimes with an earnest but
secret expression, and causing you to question what sort of
person he is.

Friday,
October lst.--I have been looking at our four
swine,--not of the last lot, but those in process of fattening.
They lie among the clean rye straw in the sty, nestling close
together; for they seem to be beasts sensitive to the cold, and
this is a clear, bright, crystal morning, with a cool
northwest-wind. So there lie these four black swine, as deep
among the straw as they can burrow, the very symbols of slothful
ease and sensuous comfort. They seem to be actually oppressed
and overburdened with comfort. They are quick to notice any
one's approach, and utter a low grunt thereupon,--not
drawing a breath for that particular purpose, but grunting with
their ordinary breath,--at the same time turning an observant,
though dull and sluggish eye upon the visitor. They seem to be
involved and buried in their own corporeal substance, and to look
dimly forth at the outer world. They breathe not easily, and yet
not with difficulty nor discomfort; for the very unreadiness and
oppression with which their breath comes appears to make them
sensible of the deep sensual satisfaction which they feel.
Swill, the remnant of their last meal, remains in the trough,
denoting that their food is more abundant than even a hog can
demand. Anon they fall asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths,
which heave their huge sides up and down; but at the slightest
noise they sluggishly unclose their eyes, and give another gentle
grunt. They also grunt among themselves, without any external
cause; but merely to express their swinish sympathy. I suppose
it is the knowledge that these four grunters are doomed to die
within two or three weeks that gives them a sort of awfulness in
my conception. It makes me contrast their present gross
substance of fleshly life with the nothingness speedily to come.
Meantime the four newly bought pigs are running about the
cow-yard, lean, active, shrewd, investigating everything, as
their nature is. When I throw an apple among them, they scramble
with one another for the prize, and the successful one scampers
away to eat it at leisure. They thrust their snouts into the
mud, and pick a grain of corn out of the rubbish. Nothing within
their sphere do they leave unexamined, grunting all the time with
infinite variety of expression. Their language is the most
copious of that of any quadruped, and, indeed, there is something
deeply and indefinably interesting in the swinish race. They
appear the more a mystery the longer one gazes at them. It seems
as if there were an important meaning to them, if one could but
find it out. Oneinteresting trait in them is their perfect
independence of character. They care not for man, and will not
adapt themselves to his notions, as other beasts do; but are true
to themselves, and act out their hoggish nature.

October
7th.--Since Saturday last (it being now Thursday), I
have been in Boston and Salem, and there has been a violent storm
and rain during the whole time. This morning shone as bright as
if it meant to make up for all the dismalness of the past days.
Our brook, which in the summer was no longer a running stream,
but stood in pools along its pebbly course, is now full from one
grassy verge to the other, and hurries along with a murmuring
rush. It will continue to swell, I suppose, and in the winter
and spring it will flood all the broad meadows through which it
flows.

I have taken a
long walk this forenoon along the Needham road, and across the
bridge, thence pursuing a cross-road through the woods, parallel
with the river, which I crossed again at Dedham. Most of the
road lay through a growth of young oaks principally. They still
retain their verdure, though, looking closely in among them, one
perceives the broken sunshine falling on a few sere or
bright-hued tufts of shrubbery. In low, marshy spots, on the
verge of the meadows or along the river-side, there is a much
more marked autumnal change. Whole ranges of bushes are there
painted with many variegated hues, not of the brightest tint, but
of a sober cheerfulness. I suppose this is owing more to the
late rains than to the frost; for a heavy rain changes the
foliage somewhat at this season. The first marked frost was seen
last Saturday morning. Soon after sunrise it lay, white as
snow,over all the
grass, and on the tops of the fences, and in the yard, on the
heap of firewood. On Sunday, I think, there was a fall of snow,
which, however, did not lie on the ground a moment.

There is no
season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and
produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial; and in sheltered places, as on
the side of a bank, or of a barn or house, one becomes acquainted
and friendly with the sunshine. It seems to be of a kindly and
homely nature. And the green grass, strewn with a few withered
leaves, looks the more green and beautiful for them. In summer
or spring, Nature is farther from one's sympathies.

October
8th.--Another gloomy day, lowering with portents of rain
close at hand. I have walked up into the pastures this morning,
and looked about me a little. The woods present a very
diversified appearance just now, with perhaps more varieties of
tint than they are destined to wear at a somewhat later period.
There are some strong yellow hues, and some deep red; there are
innumerable shades of green, some few having the depth of summer;
others, partially changed towards yellow, look freshly verdant
with the delicate tinge of early summer or of May. Then there is
the solemn and dark green of the pines. The effect is, that
every tree in the wood and every bush among the shrubbery has a
separate existence, since, confusedly intermingled, each wears
its peculiar color, instead of being lost in the universal
emerald of summer. And yet there is a oneness of effect
likewise, when we choose to look at a whole sweep of woodland
instead of analyzing its component trees. Scattered over thepasture, which the
late rains have kept tolerably green, there are spots or islands
of dusky red,--a deep, substantial hue, very well fit to be close
to the ground,--while the yellow, and light, fantastic shades of
green soar upward to the sky. These red spots are the blueberry
and whortleberry bushes. The sweet-fern is changed mostly to
russet, but still retains its wild and delightful fragrance when
pressed in the hand. Wild China asters are scattered about, but
beginning to wither. A little while ago, mushrooms or toadstools
were very numerous along the wood-paths and by the roadsides,
especially after rain. Some were of spotless white, some yellow,
and some scarlet. They are always mysteries and objects of
interest to me, springing as they do so suddenly from no root or
seed, and growing one wonders why. I think, too, that some
varieties are pretty objects, little fairy tables, centre-tables,
standing on one leg. But their growth appears to be checked now,
and they are of a brown tint and decayed.

The farm business
to-day is to dig potatoes. I worked a little at it. The process
is to grasp all the stems of a hill and pull them up. A great
many of the potatoes are thus pulled, clinging to the stems and
to one another in curious shapes,--long red things, and little
round ones, imbedded in the earth which clings to the roots.
These being plucked off, the rest of the potatoes are dug out of
the hill with a hoe, the tops being flung into a heap for the
cow-yard. On my way home, I paused to inspect the squash-field.
Some of the squashes lay in heaps as they were gathered,
presenting much variety of shape and hue,--as golden yellow, like
great lumps of gold, dark green, striped and variegated; and some
were round, andsome lay curling their long necks, nestling,
as it were, and seeming as if they had life.

In my walk
yesterday forenoon I passed an old house which seemed to be quite
deserted. It was a two-story, wooden house, dark and
weather-beaten. The front windows, some of them, were shattered
and open, and others were boarded up. Trees and shrubbery were
growing neglected, so as quite to block up the lower part. There
was an aged barn near at hand, so ruinous that it had been
necessary to prop it up. There were two old carts, both of which
had lost a wheel. Everything was in keeping. At first I
supposed that there would be no inhabitants in such a dilapidated
place; but, passing on, I looked back, and saw a decrepit and
infirm old man at the angle of the house, its fit occupant. The
grass, however, was very green and beautiful around this
dwelling, and, the sunshine falling brightly on it, the whole
effect was cheerful and pleasant. It seemed as if the world was
so glad that this desolate old place, where there was never to be
any more hope and happiness, could not at all lessen the general
effect of joy.

I found a small
turtle by the roadside, where he had crept to warm himself in the
genial sunshine. He had a sable back, and underneath his shell
was yellow, and at the edges bright scarlet. His head, tail, and
claws were striped yellow, black, and red. He withdrew himself
as far as he possibly could into his shell, and absolutely
refused to peep out, even when I put him into the water.
Finally, I threw him into a deep pool and left him. These mailed
gentlemen, from the size of a foot or more down to an inch, were
very numerous in the spring; and now the smaller kind appear
again.

Saturday,
October 9th.--Still dismal weather. Our household,
being composed in great measure of children and young people, is
generally a cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather. For a
week past we have been especially gladdened with a little
seamstress from Boston, about seventeen years old; but of such a
petite figure, that, at first view, one would take
her to be hardly in her teens. She is very vivacious and smart,
laughing and singing and talking all the time,--talking sensibly;
but still, taking the view of matters that a city girl naturally
would. If she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing
aspect, I think she might be intolerable; but being so small, and
with a fair skin, and as healthy as a wild-flower, she is really
very agreeable; and to look at her face is like being shone upon
by a ray of the sun. She never walks, but bounds and dances
along, and this motion, in her diminutive person, does not give
the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig to
twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather
vulgar, but even that works well enough into her character, and
accords with it. On continued observation, one discovers that
she is not a little girl, but really a little woman, with all the
prerogatives and liabilities of a woman. This gives a new aspect
to her, while the girlish impression still remains, and is
strangely combined with the sense that this frolicsome maiden has
the material for the sober bearing of a wife. She romps with the
boys, runs races with them in the yard, and up and down the
stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their rough play.
She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that
horse," whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her
waist, and, swinging her to and fro, lifts her onhorseback. William threatens to
rivet two horseshoes round her neck, for having clambered, with
the other girls and boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said
load lost its balance and slid off the cart. She strings the
seed-berries of roses together, making a scarlet necklace of
them, which she fastens about her throat. She gathers flowers of
everlasting to wear in her bonnet, arranging them with the skill
of a dressmaker. In the evening, she sits singing by the hour,
with the musical part of the establishment, often breaking into
laughter, whereto she is incited by the tricks of the boys. The
last thing one hears of her, she is tripping up stairs to bed,
talking lightsomely or warbling; and one meets her in the
morning, the very image of bright morn itself, smiling briskly at
you, so that one takes her for a promise of cheerfulness through
the day. Be it said, with all the rest, that there is a perfect
maiden modesty in her deportment. She has just gone away, and
the last I saw of her was her vivacious face peeping through the
curtain of the cariole, and nodding a gay farewell to the family,
who were shouting their adieus at the door. With her other
merits, she is an excellent daughter, and supports her mother by
the labor of her hands. It would be difficult to conceive
beforehand how much can be added to the enjoyment of a household
by mere sunniness of temper and liveliness of disposition; for
her intellect is very ordinary, and she never says anything worth
hearing, or even laughing at, in itself. But she herself is an
expression well worth studying.

Brook Farm,
October 9th.--A walk this afternoon to Cow Island.
The clouds had broken away towards noon, and let forth a few
sunbeams, and more andmore blue sky ventured to appear, till at
last it was really warm and sunny,--indeed, rather too warm in
the sheltered hollows, though it is delightful to be too warm
now, after so much stormy chillness. Oh the beauty of grassy
slopes, and the hollow ways of paths winding between hills, and
the intervals between the road and wood-lots, where Summer
lingers and sits down, strewing dandelions of gold, and blue
asters, as her parting gifts and memorials! I went to a
grapevine, which I have already visited several times, and found
some clusters of grapes still remaining, and now perfectly ripe.
Coming within view of the river, I saw several wild ducks under
the shadow of the opposite shore, which was high, and covered
with a grove of pines. I should not have discovered the ducks
had they not risen and skimmed the surface of the glassy stream,
breaking its dark water with a bright streak, and, sweeping
round, gradually rose high enough to fly away. I likewise
started a partridge just within the verge of the woods, and in
another place a large squirrel ran across the wood-path from one
shelter of trees to the other. Small birds, in flocks, were
flitting about the fields, seeking and finding I know not what
sort of food. There were little fish, also, darting in shoals
through the pools and depths of the brooks, which are now
replenished to their brims, and rush towards the river with a
swift, amber-colored current.

Cow Island is not
an island,--at least, at this season,--though, I believe, in the
time of freshets, the marshy Charles floods the meadows all round
about it, and extends across its communication with the mainland.
The path to it is a very secluded one, threading a wood of pines,
and just wide enough to admit the loads of meadow hay which are
drawn from thesplashy shore of the river. The island has a
growth of stately pines, with tall and ponderous stems, standing
at distance enough to admit the eye to travel far among them;
and, as there is no underbrush, the effect is somewhat like
looking among the pillars of a church.

I returned home
by the high-road. On my right, separated from the road by a
level field, perhaps fifty yards across, was a range of young
forest-trees, dressed in their garb of autumnal glory. The sun
shone directly upon them; and sunlight is like the breath of life
to the pomp of autumn. In its absence, one doubts whether there
be any truth in what poets have told about the splendor of an
American autumn; but when this charm is added, one feels that the
effect is beyond description. As I beheld it to-day, there was
nothing dazzling; it was gentle and mild, though brilliant and
diversified, and had a most quiet and pensive influence. And yet
there were some trees that seemed really made of sunshine, and
others were of a sunny red, and the whole picture was painted
with but little relief of darksome hues,--only a few evergreens.
But there was nothing inharmonious; and, on closer examination,
it appeared that all the tints had a relationship among
themselves. And this, I suppose, is the reason that, while
nature seems to scatter them so carelessly, they still never
shock the beholder by their contrasts, nor disturb, but only
soothe. The brilliant scarlet and the brilliant yellow are
different hues of the maple-leaves, and the first changes into
the last. I saw one maple-tree, its centre yellow as gold, set
in a framework of red. The native poplars have different shades
of green, verging towards yellow, and are very cheerful in the
sunshine. Mostof
the oak-leaves have still the deep verdure of summer; but where a
change has taken place, it is into a russet-red, warm, but sober.
These colors, infinitely varied by the progress which different
trees have made in their decay, constitute almost the whole glory
of autumnal woods; but it is impossible to conceive how much is
done with such scanty materials. In my whole walk I saw only one
man, and he was at a distance, in the obscurity of the trees. He
had a horse and a wagon, and was getting a load of dry brushwood.

Sunday,
October 10th.--I visited my grapevine this
afternoon, and ate the last of its clusters. This vine climbs
around a young maple-tree, which has now assumed the yellow leaf.
The leaves of the vine are more decayed than those of the maple.
Thence to Cow Island, a solemn and thoughtful walk. Returned by
another path, of the width of a wagon, passing through a grove of
hard wood, the lightsome hues of which make the walk more
cheerful than among the pines. The roots of oaks emerged from
the soil, and contorted themselves across the path. The
sunlight, also, broke across in spots, and otherwheres the shadow
was deep; but still there was intermingling enough of bright hues
to keep off the gloom from the whole path.

Brooks and pools
have a peculiar aspect at this season. One knows that the water
must be cold, and one shivers a little at the sight of it; and
yet the grass about the pool may be of the deepest green, and the
sun may be shining into it. The withered leaves which
overhanging trees shed upon its surface contribute much to the
effect.

Insects have
mostly vanished in the fields and woods. I hear locusts yet,
singing in the sunny hours, and crickets have not yet finished
their song. Once in a while I see a caterpillar,--this
afternoon, for instance, a red, hairy one, with black head and
tail. They do not appear to be active, and it makes one rather
melancholy to look at them.

Tuesday,
October 12th.--The cawing of the crow resounds
among the woods. A sentinel is aware of your approach a great
way off, and gives the alarm to his comrades loudly and
eagerly,--Caw, caw, caw! Immediately the whole conclave replies,
and you behold them rising above the trees, flapping darkly, and
winging their way to deeper solitudes. Sometimes, however, they
remain till you come near enough to discern their sable gravity
of aspect, each occupying a separate bough, or perhaps the
blasted tip-top of a pine. As you approach, one after another,
with loud cawing, flaps his wings and throws himself upon the
air.

There is hardly a
more striking feature in the landscape nowadays than the red
patches of blueberry and whortleberry bushes, as seen on a
sloping hill-side, like islands among the grass, with trees
growing in them; or crowning the summit of a bare, brown hill
with their somewhat russet liveliness; or circling round the base
of an earth-imbedded rock. At a distance, this hue, clothing
spots and patches of the earth, looks more like a picture than
anything else,--yet such a picture as I never saw painted.

The oaks are now
beginning to look sere, and their leaves have withered borders.
It is pleasant to notice the wide circle of greener grass beneath
thecircumference
of an overshadowing oak. Passing an orchard, one hears an uneasy
rustling in the trees, and not as if they were struggling with
the wind. Scattered about are barrels to contain the gathered
apples; and perhaps a great heap of golden or scarlet apples is
collected in one place.

Wednesday,
October 13th.--A good view, from an upland swell of
our pasture, across the valley of the river Charles. There is
the meadow, as level as a floor, and carpeted with green, perhaps
two miles from the rising ground on this side of the river to
that on the opposite side. The stream winds through the midst of
the flat space, without any banks at all; for it fills its bed
almost to the brim, and bathes the meadow grass on either side.
A tuft of shrubbery, at broken intervals, is scattered along its
border; and thus it meanders sluggishly along, without other life
than what it gains from gleaming in the sun. Now, into the
broad, smooth meadow, as into a lake, capes and headlands put
themselves forth, and shores of firm woodland border it, covered
with variegated foliage, making the contrast so much the stronger
of their height and rough outline with the even spread of the
plain. And beyond, and far away, rises a long, gradual swell of
country, covered with an apparently dense growth of foliage for
miles, till the horizon terminates it; and here and there is a
house, or perhaps two, among the contiguity of trees. Everywhere
the trees wear their autumnal dress, so that the whole landscape
is red, russet, orange, and yellow, blending in the distance into
a rich tint of brown-orange, or nearly that,--except the green
expanse so definitely hemmed in by the higher ground.

I took a long
walk this morning, going first nearly to Newton, thence nearly to
Brighton, thence to Jamaica Plain, and thence home. It was a
fine morning, with a northwest-wind; cool when facing the wind,
but warm and most genially pleasant in sheltered spots; and warm
enough everywhere while I was in motion. I traversed most of the
by-ways which offered themselves to me; and, passing through one
in which there was a double line of grass between the
wheel-tracks and that of the horses' feet, I came to where
had once stood a farmhouse, which appeared to have been recently
torn down. Most of the old timber and boards had been carted
away; a pile of it, however, remained. The cellar of the house
was uncovered, and beside it stood the base and middle height of
the chimney. The oven, in which household bread had been baked
for daily food, and puddings and cake and jolly pumpkin-pies for
festivals, opened its mouth, being deprived of its iron door.
The fireplace was close at hand. All round the site of the house
was a pleasant, sunny, green space, with old fruit-trees in
pretty fair condition, though aged. There was a barn, also aged,
but in decent repair; and a ruinous shed, on the corner of which
was nailed a boy's windmill, where it had probably been
turning and clattering for years together, till now it was black
with time and weather-stain. It was broken, but still it went
round whenever the wind stirred. The spot was entirely secluded,
there being no other house within a mile or two.

No language can
give an idea of the beauty and glory of the trees, just at this
moment. It would be easy, by a process of word-daubing, to set
down a confused group of gorgeous colors, like a bunch oftangled skeins of
bright silk; but there is nothing of the reality in the glare
which would thus be produced. And yet the splendor both of
individual clusters and of whole scenes is unsurpassable. The
oaks are now far advanced in their change of hue; and, in certain
positions relatively to the sun, they light up and gleam with a
most magnificent deep gold, varying according as portions of the
foliage are in shadow or sunlight. On the sides which receive
the direct rays, the effect is altogether rich; and in other
points of view it is equally beautiful, if less brilliant. This
color of the oak is more superb than the lighter yellow of the
maples and walnuts. The whole landscape is now covered with this
indescribable pomp; it is discerned on the uplands afar off; and
Blue Hill in Milton, at the distance of several miles, actually
glistens with rich, dark light,--no, not glistens, nor
gleams,--but perhaps to say glows subduedly will be a truer
expression for it.

Met few people
this morning; a grown girl, in company with a little boy,
gathering barberries in a secluded lane; a portly, autumnal
gentleman, wrapped in a great-coat, who asked the way to Mr.
Joseph Goddard's; and a fish-cart from the city, the driver
of which sounded his horn along the lonesome way.

Monday,
October 18th--There has been a succession of days
which were cold and bright in the forenoon, and gray, sullen, and
chill towards night. The woods have now taken a soberer tint
than they wore at my last date. Many of the shrubs which looked
brightest a little while ago are now wholly bare of leaves. The
oaks have generally a russet-brown shade, although some of them
are still green, as are likewiseother scattered trees in the forests. The
bright yellow and the rich scarlet are no more to be seen.
Scarcely any of them will now bear a close examination; for this
shows them to be rugged, wilted, and of faded, frost-bitten hue;
but at a distance, and in the mass, and enlivened by the sun,
they have still somewhat of the varied splendor which
distinguished them a week ago. It is wonderful what a difference
the sunshine makes; it is like varnish, bringing out the hidden
veins in a piece of rich wood. In the cold, gray atmosphere,
such as that of most of our afternoons now, the landscape lies
dark,--brown, and in a much deeper shadow than if it were clothed
in green. But, perchance, a gleam of sun falls on a certain spot
of distant shrubbery or woodland, and we see it brighten with
many hues, standing forth prominently from the dimness around it.
The sunlight gradually spreads, and the whole sombre scene is
changed to a motley picture,--the sun bringing out many shades of
color, and converting its gloom to an almost laughing
cheerfulness. At such times I almost doubt whether the foliage
has lost any of its brilliancy. But the clouds intercept the sun
again, and lo! old Autumn appears, clad in his cloak of
russet-brown.

Beautiful now,
while the general landscape lies in shadow, looks the summit of a
distant hill (say a mile off), with the sunshine brightening the
trees that cover it. It is noticeable that the outlines of
hills, and the whole bulk of them at the distance of several
miles, become stronger, denser, and more substantial in this
autumn atmosphere and in these autumnal tints than in summer.
Then they looked blue, misty, and dim. Now they show their great
humpbacks more plainly, as if they had drawn nearer to us.

A waste of
shrubbery and small trees, such as overruns the borders of the
meadows for miles together, looks much more rugged, wild, and
savage in its present brown color than when clad in green.

I passed through
a very pleasant wood-path yesterday, quite shut in and sheltered
by trees that had not thrown off their yellow robes. The sun
shone strongly in among them, and quite kindled them; so that the
path was brighter for their shade than if it had been quite
exposed to the sun.

In the village
graveyard, which lies contiguous to the street, I saw a man
digging a grave, and one inhabitant after another turned aside
from his way to look into the grave and talk with the digger. I
heard him laugh, with the traditionary mirthfulness of men of
that occupation.

In the hollow
of the woods, yesterday afternoon, I lay a long while watching a
squirrel, who was capering about among the trees over my head
(oaks and white-pines, so close together that their branches
intermingled). The squirrel seemed not to approve of my
presence, for he frequently uttered a sharp, quick, angry noise,
like that of a scissors-grinder's wheel. Sometimes I could
see him sitting on an impending bough, with his tail over his
back, looking down pryingly upon me. It seems to be a natural
posture with him, to sit on his hind legs, holding up his fore
paws. Anon, with a peculiarly quick start, he would scramble
along the branch, and be lost to sight in another part of the
tree, whence his shrill chatter would again be heard. Then I
would see him rapidly descending the trunk, and running along the
ground; and a moment afterwards, casting my eye upward, I beheld
him flitting like a bird among the high limbs at thesummit, directly
above me. Afterwards, he apparently became accustomed to my
society, and set about some business of his own. He came down to
the ground, took up a piece of a decayed bough (a heavy burden
for such a small personage), and, with this in his mouth, again
climbed up and passed from the branches of one tree to those of
another, and thus onward and onward till he went out of sight.
Shortly afterwards he returned for another burden, and this he
repeated several times. I suppose he was building a nest,--at
least, I know not what else could have been his object. Never
was there such an active, cheerful, choleric,
continually-in-motion fellow as this little red squirrel, talking
to himself, chattering at me, and as sociable in his own person
as if he had half a dozen companions, instead of being alone in
the lonesome wood. Indeed, he flitted about so quickly, and
showed himself in different places so suddenly, that I was in
some doubt whether there were not two or three of them.

I must mention
again the very beautiful effect produced by the masses of
berry-bushes, lying like scarlet islands in the midst of withered
pasture-ground, or crowning the tops of barren hills. Their hue,
at a distance, is lustrous scarlet, although it does not look
nearly as bright and gorgeous when examined close at hand. But
at a proper distance it is a beautiful fringe on Autumn's
petticoat.

Friday,
October 22d.--A continued succession of unpleasant,
Novembery days, and autumn has made rapid progress in the work of
decay. It is now somewhat of a rare good fortune to find a
verdant, grassy spot, on some slope, or in a dell; and even such
seldom-seen oases are bestrewn with dried brown leaves,--which, however,
methinks, make the short, fresh grass look greener around them.
Dry leaves are now plentiful everywhere, save where there are
none but pine-trees. They rustle beneath the tread, and there is
nothing more autumnal than that sound. Nevertheless, in a walk
this afternoon, I have seen two oaks which retained almost the
greenness of summer. They grew close to the huge Pulpit Rock, so
that portions of their trunks appeared to grasp the rough
surface; and they were rooted beneath it, and, ascending high
into the air, overshadowed the gray crag with verdure. Other
oaks, here and there, have a few green leaves or boughs among
their rustling and rugged shade.

Yet, dreary as
the woods are in a bleak, sullen day, there is a very peculiar
sense of warmth and a sort of richness of effect in the slope of
a bank and in sheltered spots, where bright sunshine falls, and
the brown oaken foliage is gladdened by it. There is then a
feeling of comfort, and consequently of heart-warmth, which
cannot be experienced in summer.

I walked this
afternoon along a pleasant wood-path, gently winding, so that but
little of it could be seen at a time, and going up and down small
mounds, now plunging into a denser shadow, and now emerging from
it. Part of the way it was strewn with the dusky, yellow leaves
of white-pines,--the cast-off garments of last year; part of the
way with green grass, close-cropped, and very fresh for the
season. Sometimes the trees met across it; sometimes it was
bordered on one side by an old rail-fence of moss-grown cedar,
with bushes sprouting beneath it, and thrusting their branches
through it; sometimes by a stone-wall of unknown antiquity, older
than the wood it closed in. Astone-wall, when shrubbery has grown around
it, and thrust its roots beneath it, becomes a very pleasant and
meditative object. It does not belong too evidently to man,
having been built so long ago. It seems a part of nature.

Yesterday I
found two mushrooms in the woods, probably of the preceding
night's growth. Also I saw a mosquito, frost-pinched, and
so wretched that I felt avenged for all the injuries which his
tribe inflicted upon me last summer, and so did not molest this
lone survivor.

Walnuts in
their green rinds are falling from the trees, and so are
chestnut-burrs.

I found a
maple-leaf to-day, yellow all over, except its extremest point,
which was bright scarlet. It looked as if a drop of blood were
hanging from it. The first change of the maple-leaf is to
scarlet; the next, to yellow. Then it withers, wilts, and drops
off, as most of them have already done.

October 27th.--Fringed
gentians,--I found the last, probably, that will be seen this
year, growing on the margin of the brook.

1842.--Some man
of powerful character to command a person, morally subjected to
him, to perform some act. The commanding person suddenly to die;
and, for all the rest of his life, the subjected one continues to
perform that act.

"Solomon
dies during the building of the temple, but his body remains
leaning on a staff, and overlooking the workmen, as if it were
alive."

It seems a
greater pity that an accomplished worker with the hand should
perish prematurely, than a person of great intellect; because
intellectual arts may be cultivated in the next world, but not
physical ones.

To trace out the
influence of a frightful and disgraceful crime in debasing and
destroying a character naturally high and noble, the guilty
person being alone conscious of the crime.

A man, virtuous
in his general conduct, but committing habitually some monstrous
crime,--as murder,--and doing this without the sense of guilt,
but with a peaceful conscience,--habit, probably, reconciling him
to it; but something (for instance, discovery) occurs to make him
sensible of his enormity. His horror then.

The strangeness,
if they could be foreseen and forethought, of events which do not
seem so strange after they have happened. As, for instance, to
muse over a child's cradle, and foresee all the persons in
different parts of the world with whom he would have relations.

A man to swallow
a small snake,--and it to be a symbol of a cherished sin.

Questions as to
unsettled points of history, and mysteries of nature, to be asked
of a mesmerized person.

Gordier, a young
man of the Island of Jersey, was paying his addresses to a young
lady of Guernsey. He visited the latter island, intending to be
married. He disappeared on his way from the beach to his
mistress's residence, and was afterwards found dead in a
cavity of the rocks. After a time, Galliard, a merchant of
Guernsey, paid his addresses to the young lady; but she always
felt a strong, unaccountable antipathy to him. He presented her
with a beautiful trinket. The mother of Gordier, chancing to see
this trinket, recognized it as having been bought by her dead son
as a present for his mistress. She expired on learning this; and
Galliard, being suspected of the murder, committed suicide.

Thecuré of Montreux in Switzerland, ninety six
years old, still vigorous in mind and body, and able to preach.
He had a twin-brother, also a preacher, and the exact likeness of
himself. Sometimes strangers have beheld a white-haired,
venerable, clerical personage, nearly a century old; and, upon
riding a few miles farther, have been astonished to meet again
this white-haired, venerable, century-old personage.

When the body of
Lord Mohun (killed in a duel) was carried home, bleeding, to his
house, Lady Mohun was very angry because it was "flung upon
the best bed."

A prophecy,
somewhat in the style of Swift's about Partridge, but
embracing various events and personages.

An incident that
befell Dr. Harris, while a Junior at college. Being in great
want of money to buy shirts or other necessaries, and not knowing
how to obtain it, he set out on a walk from Cambridge to Boston.
On the way he cut a stick, and, after walking a short distance,
perceived that something had become attached to the end of it.
It proved to be a gold ring, with the motto, "God speed
thee, friend."

People with false
hair and other artifices may be supposed to deceive Death
himself, so that he does not know when their hour is come.

Bees are
sometimes drowned (or suffocated) in the honey which they
collect. So some writers are lost in their collected
learning.

Advice of Lady
Pepperell's father on her marriage,--never to work one
moment after Saturday sunset,--never to lay down her knitting
except in the middle of the needle,--always to rise with the
sun,--to pass an hour daily with the housekeeper,--to visit every
room daily from garret to cellar,--to attend herself to the
brewing of beer and the baking of bread,--and to instruct every
member of the family in their religious duties.

Service of plate,
presented by the city of London to Sir William Pepperell,
together with a table of solid silver. The table very narrow,
but long; the articles of plate numerous, but of small
dimensions,--the tureen not holding more than three pints. At
the close of the Revolution, when the Pepperell and Sparhawk
property was confiscated, this plate was sent to the grandson of
Sir William, in London. It was so valuable, that Sheriff
Moulton, of old York, with six well-armed men, accompanied it to
Boston. Pepperell's only daughter married Colonel Sparhawk,
a fine gentleman of the day. Andrew Pepperell, the son, was
rejected by a young lady (afterwards the mother of Mrs. General
Knox), to whom he was on the point of marriage, as being addicted
to low company and low pleasures. The lover, two days
afterwards, in the streets of Portsmouth, was sun-struck, and
fell down dead. Sir William had built an elegant house for his
son and his intended wife; but after the death of the former he
never entered it. He lost his cheerfulness and social qualities,
and gave up intercourse with people, except on business. Very
anxious to secure his property to his descendants by the
provisions of his will, which was drawn up by Judge Sewall, then
a young lawyer. Yet the Judge lived to see two of Sir
William's grandchildren so reduced that they were to have
been numbered among the town's poor, and were only rescued
from this fate by private charity.

The arms and
crest of the Pepperell family were displayed over the door of
every room in Sir William's house. In Colonel
Sparhawk's house there were forty portraits, most of them in
full length. The house built for Sir William's son was
occupied as barracksduring the Revolution, and much injured. A
few years after the peace, it was blown down by a violent
tempest, and finally no vestige of it was left, but there
remained only a summer-house and the family tomb.

At Sir
William's death, his mansion was hung with black, while the
body lay in state for a week. All the Sparhawk portraits were
covered with black crape, and the family pew was draped with
black. Two oxen were roasted, and liquid hospitality dispensed
in proportion.

Old lady's
dress seventy or eighty years ago. Brown brocade gown, with a
nice lawn handkerchief and apron,--short sleeves, with a little
ruffle, just below the elbow,--black mittens,--a lawn cap, with
rich lace border,--a black velvet hood on the back of the head,
tied with black ribbon under the chin. She sat in an
old-fashioned easy-chair, in a small, low parlor,--the wainscot
painted entirely black, and the walls hung with a dark velvet
paper.

A table,
stationary ever since the house was built, extending the whole
length of a room. One end was raised two steps higher than the
rest. The Lady Ursula, an early Colonial heroine, was wont to
dine at the upper end, while her servants sat below. This was in
the kitchen. An old garden and summer-house, and roses,
currant-bushes, and tulips, which Lady Ursula had brought from
Grondale Abbey, in Old England. Although a hundred and fifty
years before, and though their roots were propagated all over the
country, they were still flourishing in the original garden.
This Lady Ursula was the daughter of Lord Thomas Cutts, of
Grondale Abbey, in England. She had been in love with an officer
named Fowler, whowas supposed to have been slain in battle.
After the death of her father and mother, Lady Ursula came to
Kittery, bringing twenty men-servants and several women. After a
time, a letter arrived from her lover, who was not killed, but
merely a prisoner to the French. He announced his purpose to
come to America, where he would arrive in October. A few days
after the letter came, she went out in a low carriage to visit
her work-people, and was blessing the food for their luncheon,
when she fell dead, struck by an Indian tomahawk, as did all the
rest save one. They were buried where the massacre took place,
and a stone was erected, which (possibly) still remains. The
lady's family had a grant from Sir Ferdinando Gorges of the
territory thereabout, and her brother had likewise come over and
settled in the vicinity. I believe very little of this story.
Long afterwards, at about the commencement of the Revolution, a
descendant of Fowler came from England, and applied to the Judge
of Probate to search the records for a will, supposed to have
been made by Lady Ursula in favor of her lover as soon as she
heard of his existence. In the mean time the estate had been
sold to Colonel Whipple. No will could be found. (Lady Ursula
was old Mrs. Cutts, widow of President Cutts.)

The mode of
living of Lady Ursula's brother in Kittery. A drawbridge to
the house, which was raised every evening, and lowered in the
morning, for the laborers and the family to pass out. They kept
thirty cows, a hundred sheep, and several horses. The house
spacious,--one room large enough to contain forty or fifty
guests. Two silver branches for candles,--the walls ornamented
with paintings and needlework. The floors were daily rubbed with
wax, and shonelike a mahogany table. A domestic chaplain,
who said prayers every morning and evening in a small apartment
called the chapel. Also a steward and butler. The family
attended the Episcopal Church at Christmas, Easter, and Good
Friday, and gave a grand entertainment once a year.

Madam Cutts, at
the last of these entertainments, wore a black damask gown, and
cuffs with double lace ruffles, velvet shoes, blue silk
stockings, white and silver stomacher. The daughter and
granddaughters in rich brocades and yellow satin. Old Major
Cutts in brown velvet, laced with gold, and a large wig. The
parson in his silk cassock, and his helpmate in brown damask.
Old General Atkinson in scarlet velvet, and his wife and
daughters in white damask. The Governor in black velvet, and his
lady in crimson tabby trimmed with silver, The ladies wore
bell-hoops, high-heeled shoes, paste buckles, silk stockings, and
enormously high head-dresses, with lappets of Brussels lace
hanging thence to the waist.

Among the
eatables, a silver tub of the capacity of four gallons, holding a
pyramid of pancakes powdered with white sugar.

June
1st, 1842.--One of my chief amusements is to see the
boys sail their miniature vessels on the Frog Pond. There is a
great variety of shipping owned among the young people, and they
appear to have a considerable knowledge of the art of managing
vessels. There is a full-rigged man-of-war, with, I believe,
every spar, rope, and sail, that sometimes makes its appearance;
and, when on a voyage across the pond, it so identically
resembles a great ship, except in size, that it has the effect of
a picture. All its motions,--its tossing up and down on the
small waves, and its sinking and rising in a calm swell, its
heeling to the breeze,--the whole effect, in short, is that of a
real ship at sea; while, moreover, there is something that
kindles the imagination more than the reality would do. If we
see a real, great ship, the mind grasps and possesses, within its
real clutch, all that there is of it; while here the mimic ship
is the representation of an ideal one, and so gives us a more
imaginative pleasure. There are many schooners that ply to and
fro on the pond, and pilot-boats, all perfectly rigged. I saw a
race, the other day, between the ship above mentioned and a
pilot-boat, in which the latter came off conqueror. The boys
appear to be well acquainted with all the ropes and sails, and
can call them by theirnautical names. One of the owners of the
vessels remains on one side of the pond, and the other on the
opposite side, and so they send the little bark to and fro, like
merchants of different countries, consigning their vessels to one
another.

Generally, when
any vessel is on the pond, there are full-grown spectators, who
look on with as much interest as the boys themselves. Towards
sunset, this is especially the case: for then are seen young
girls and their lovers; mothers, with their little boys in hand;
school-girls, beating hoops round about, and occasionally running
to the side of the pond; rough tars, or perhaps masters or young
mates of vessels, who make remarks about the miniature shipping,
and occasionally give professional advice to the navigators;
visitors from the country; gloved and caned young gentlemen,--in
short, everybody stops to take a look. In the mean time, dogs
are continually plunging into the pond, and swimming about, with
noses pointed upward, and snatching at floating chips; then
emerging, they shake themselves, scattering a horizontal shower
on the clean gowns of ladies and trousers of gentlemen; then
scamper to and fro on the grass, with joyous barks.

Some boys cast
off lines of twine with pin-hooks, and perhaps pull out a
horned-pout,--that being, I think, the only kind of fish that
inhabits the Frog Pond.

The ship-of-war
above mentioned is about three feet from stem to stern, or
possibly a few inches more. This, if I mistake not, was the size
of a ship-of-the-line in the navy of Liliput.

Fancy pictures of
familiar places which one has never been in, as the green-room of
a theatre, etc.

The famous
characters of history,--to imagine their spirits now extant on
earth, in the guise of various public or private personages.

The case quoted
in Combe's "Physiology" of a young man of great
talents and profound knowledge of chemistry, who had in view some
new discovery of importance. In order to put his mind into the
highest possible activity, he shut himself up for several
successive days, and used various methods of excitement. He had
a singing-girl, he drank spirits, smelled penetrating odors,
sprinkled Cologne-water round the room, etc., etc. Eight days
thus passed, when he was seized with a fit of frenzy which
terminated in mania.

Concord,
August 5th.--A rainy day,--a rainy day. I am
commanded to take pen in hand, and I am therefore banished to the
little ten-foot-square apartment misnamed my study; but perhaps
the dismalness of the day and the dulness of my solitude will be
the prominent characteristics of what I write. And what is there
to write about? Happiness has no succession of events, because
it is a part of eternity; and we have been living in eternity
ever since we came to this old manse. Like Enoch, we seem to
have been translated to the other state of being without having
passed through death. Our spirits must have flitted away
unconsciously, and we can only perceive that we have cast off our
mortal part by the more real and earnest life of our souls.
Externally, our Paradise has very much the aspect of a pleasant
old domicile on earth. This antique house--for it looks antique,
though it was created by Providenceexpressly for our use, and at the precise
time when we wanted it--stands behind a noble avenue of
balm-of-Gilead trees; and when we chance to observe a passing
traveller through the sunshine and the shadow of this long
avenue, his figure appears too dim and remote to disturb the
sense of blissful seclusion. Few, indeed, are the mortals who
venture within our sacred precincts. George Prescott, who has
not yet grown earthly enough, I suppose, to be debarred from
occasional visits to Paradise, comes daily to bring three pints
of milk from some ambrosial cow; occasionally, also, he makes an
offering of mortal flowers. Mr. Emerson comes sometimes, and
has been feasted on our nectar and ambrosia. Mr. Thoreau has
twice listened to the music of the spheres, which, for our
private convenience, we have packed into a musical-box. E----
H---- , who is much more at home among spirits than among fleshly
bodies, came hither a few times merely to welcome us to the
ethereal world; but latterly she has vanished into some other
region of infinite space. One rash mortal, on the second Sunday
after our arrival, obtruded himself upon us in a gig. There have
since been three or four callers, who preposterously think that
the courtesies of the lower world are to be responded to by
people whose home is in Paradise. I must not forget to mention
that the butcher conies twice or thrice a week; and we have so
far improved upon the custom of Adam and Eve, that we generally
furnish forth our feasts with portions of some delicate calf or
lamb, whose unspotted innocence entitles them to the happiness of
becoming our sustenance. Would that I were permitted to record
the celestial dainties that kind Heaven provided for us on the
first day of ourarrival! Never, surely, was such food heard
of on earth,--at least, not by me. Well, the above-mentioned
persons are nearly all that have entered into the hallowed shade
of our avenue; except, indeed, a certain sinner who came to
bargain for the grass in our orchard, and another who came with a
new cistern. For it is one of the drawbacks upon our Eden that
it contains no water fit either to drink or to bathe in; so that
the showers have become, in good truth, a godsend. I wonder why
Providence does not cause a clear, cold fountain to bubble up at
our doorstep; methinks it would not be unreasonable to pray for
such a favor. At present we are under the ridiculous necessity
of sending to the outer world for water. Only imagine Adam
trudging out of Paradise with a bucket in each hand, to get water
to drink, or for Eve to bathe in! Intolerable! (though our
stout handmaiden really fetches our water.) In other respects
Providence has treated us pretty tolerably well; but here I shall
expect something further to be done. Also, in the way of future
favors, a kitten would be very acceptable. Animals (except,
perhaps, a pig) seem never out of place, even in the most
paradisiacal spheres. And, by the way, a young colt comes up our
avenue, now and then, to crop the seldom-trodden herbage; and so
does a company of cows, whose sweet breath well repays us for the
food which they obtain. There are likewise a few hens, whose
quiet cluck is heard pleasantly about the house. A black dog
sometimes stands at the farther extremity of the avenue, and
looks wistfully hitherward; but when I whistle to him, he puts
his tail between his legs, and trots away. Foolish dog! if he
had more faith, he should have bones enough.

Saturday,
August 6th.--Still a dull day, threatening rain,
yet without energy of character enough to rain outright.
However, yesterday there were showers enough to supply us well
with their beneficent out-pouring. As to the new cistern, it
seems to be bewitched; for, while the spout pours into it like a
cataract, it still remains almost empty. I wonder where Mr.
Hosmer got it; perhaps from Tantalus, under the eaves of whose
palace it must formerly have stood; for, like his drinking-cup in
Hades, it has the property of filling itself forever, and never
being full.

After breakfast I
took my fishing-rod, and went down through our orchard to the
river-side; but as three or four boys were already in possession
of the best spots along the shore, I did not fish. This river of
ours is the most sluggish stream that I ever was acquainted with.
I had spent three weeks by its side, and swam across it every
day, before I could determine which way its current ran; and then
I was compelled to decide the question by the testimony of
others, and not by my own observation. Owing to this torpor of
the stream, it has nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor is there
so much as a narrow strip of glistening sand in any part of its
course; but it slumbers along between broad meadows, or kisses
the tangled grass of mowing-fields and pastures, or bathes the
overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and other water-loving plants.
Flags and rushes grow along its shallow margin. The yellow
water-lily spreads its broad flat leaves upon its surface; and
the fragrant white pond-lily occurs in many favored
spots,--generally selecting a situation just so far from the
river's brink that it cannot be grasped except at the
hazardof plunging
in. But thanks be to the beautiful flower for growing at any
rate. It is a marvel whence it derives its loveliness and
perfume, sprouting as it does from the black mud over which the
river sleeps, and from which the yellow lily likewise draws its
unclean life and noisome odor. So it is with many people in this
world; the same soil and circumstances may produce the good and
beautiful, and the wicked and ugly. Some have the faculty of
assimilating to themselves only what is evil, and so they become
as noisome as the yellow water-lily. Some assimilate none but
good influences, and their emblem is the fragrant and spotless
pond-lily, whose very breath is a blessing to all the region
round about. . . . Among the productions of the river's
margin, I must not forget the pickerel-weed, which grows just on
the edge of the water, and shoots up a long stalk crowned with a
blue spire, from among large green leaves. Both the flower and
the leaves look well in a vase with pond-lilies, and relieve the
unvaried whiteness of the latter; and, being all alike children
of the waters, they are perfectly in keeping with one another. .
. .

I bathe once, and
often twice, a day in our river; but one dip into the salt sea
would be worth more than a whole week's soaking in such a
lifeless tide. I have read of a river somewhere (whether it be
in classic regions or among our Western Indians I know not) which
seemed to dissolve and steal away the vigor of those who bathed
in it. Perhaps our stream will be found to have this property.
Its water, however, is pleasant in its immediate effect, being as
soft as milk, and always warmer than the air. Its hue has a
slight tinge of gold, and my limbs, when I behold them through
its medium, look tawny. I am notaware that the inhabitants of Concord
resemble their native river in any of their moral
characteristics. Their forefathers, certainly, seem to have had
the energy and impetus of a mountain torrent, rather than the
torpor of this listless stream,--as it was proved by the blood
with which they stained their river of Peace. It is said there
are plenty of fish in it; but my most important captures hitherto
have been a mud-turtle and an enormous eel. The former made his
escape to his native element,--the latter we ate; and truly he
had the taste of the whole river in his flesh, with a very
prominent flavor of mud. On the whole, Concord River is no great
favorite of mine; but I am glad to have any river at all so near
at hand, it being just at the bottom of our orchard. Neither is
it without a degree and kind of picturesqueness, both in its
nearness and in the distance, when a blue gleam from its surface,
among the green meadows and woods, seems like an open eye in
Earth's countenance. Pleasant it is, too, to behold a
little flat-bottomed skiff gliding over its bosom, which yields
lazily to the stroke of the paddle, and allows the boat to go
against its current almost as freely as with it. Pleasant, too,
to watch an angler, as he strays along the brink, sometimes
sheltering himself behind a tuft of bushes, and trailing his line
along the water, in hopes to catch a pickerel. But, taking the
river for all in all, I can find nothing more fit to compare it
with than one of the half-torpid earthworms which I dig up for
bait. The worm is sluggish, and so is the river,--the river is
muddy, and so is the worm. You hardly know whether either of
them be alive or dead; but still, in the course of time, they
both manage to creep away. The best aspect of the Concord is
when there is anorthwestern breeze curling its surface, in a
bright, sunshiny day. It then assumes a vivacity not its own.
Moonlight, also, gives it beauty, as it does to all scenery of
earth or water.

Sunday,
August 7th.--At sunset last evening I ascended the
hill-top opposite our house; and, looking downward at the long
extent of the river, it struck me that I had done it some
injustice in my remarks. Perhaps, like other gentle and quiet
characters, it will be better appreciated the longer I am
acquainted with it. Certainly, as I beheld it then, it was one
of the loveliest features in a scene of great rural beauty. It
was visible through a course of two or three miles, sweeping in a
semicircle round the hill on which I stood, and being the central
line of a broad vale on either side. At a distance, it looked
like a strip of sky set into the earth, which it so etherealized
and idealized that it seemed akin to the upper regions. Nearer
the base of the hill, I could discern the shadows of every tree
and rock, imaged with a distinctness that made them even more
charming than the reality; because, knowing them to be
unsubstantial, they assumed the ideality which the soul always
craves in the contemplation of earthly beauty. All the sky, too,
and the rich clouds of sunset, were reflected in the peaceful
bosom of the river; and surely, if its bosom can give back such
an adequate reflection of heaven, it cannot be so gross and
impure as I described it yesterday. Or, if so, it shall be a
symbol to me that even a human breast, which may appear least
spiritual in some aspects, may still have the capability of
reflecting an infinite heaven in its depths, and therefore of
enjoying it. It is a comfortable thought, that the smallest
andmost turbid
mud-puddle can contain its own picture of heaven. Let us
remember this, when we feel inclined to deny all spiritual life
to some people, in whom, nevertheless, our Father may perhaps see
the image of His face. This dull river has a deep religion of
its own; so, let us trust, has the dullest human soul, though,
perhaps, unconsciously.

The scenery of
Concord, as I beheld it from the summit of the hill, has no very
marked characteristics, but has a great deal of quiet beauty, in
keeping with the river. There are broad and peaceful meadows,
which, I think, are among the most satisfying objects in natural
scenery. The heart reposes on them with a feeling that few
things else can give, because almost all other objects are abrupt
and clearly defined; but a meadow stretches out like a small
infinity, yet with a secure homeliness which we do not find
either in an expanse of water or of air. The hills which border
these meadows are wide swells of land, or long and gradual
ridges, some of them densely covered with wood. The white
village, at a distance on the left, appears to be embosomed among
wooded hills. The verdure of the country is much more perfect
than is usual at this season of the year, when the autumnal hue
has generally made considerable progress over trees and grass.
Last evening, after the copious showers of the preceding two
days, it was worthy of early June, or, indeed, of a world just
created. Had I not then been alone, I should have had a far
deeper sense of beauty, for I should have looked through the
medium of another spirit. Along the horizon there were masses of
those deep clouds in which the fancy may see images of all things
that ever existed or were dreamed of. Over our old manse, of
which I couldcatch but a glimpse among its embowering
trees, appeared the immensely gigantic figure of a hound,
crouching down with head erect, as if keeping watchful guard
while the master of the mansion was away. . . . How sweet it
was to draw near my own home, after having lived homeless in the
world so long! . . . With thoughts like these, I descended
the hill, and clambered over the stone-wall, and crossed the
road, and passed up our avenue, while the quaint old house put on
an aspect of welcome.

Monday,
August 8th.--I wish I could give a description of
our house, for it really has a character of its own, which is
more than can be said of most edifices in these days. It is two
stories high, with a third story of attic chambers in the
gable-roof. When I first visited it, early in June, it looked
pretty much as it did during the old clergyman's lifetime,
showing all the dust and disarray that might be supposed to have
gathered about him in the course of sixty years of occupancy.
The rooms seemed never to have been painted; at all events, the
walls and panels, as well as the huge cross-beams, had a
venerable and most dismal tinge of brown. The furniture
consisted of high-backed, short-legged, rheumatic chairs, small,
old tables, bedsteads with lofty posts, stately chests of
drawers, looking-glasses in antique black frames, all of which
were probably fashionable in the days of Dr. Ripley's
predecessor. It required some energy of imagination to conceive
the idea of transforming this ancient edifice into a comfortable
modern residence. However, it has been successfully
accomplished. The old Doctor's sleeping-apartment, which
was the front room on the ground-floor, we have converted into a
parlor; and bythe
aid of cheerful paint and paper, a gladsome carpet, pictures and
engravings, new furniture, bijouterie, and a daily
supply of flowers, it has become one of the prettiest and
pleasantest rooms in the whole world. The shade of our departed
host will never haunt it; for its aspect has been changed as
completely as the scenery of a theatre. Probably the ghost gave
one peep into it, uttered a groan, and vanished forever. The
opposite room has been metamorphosed into a store-room. Through
the house, both in the first and second story, runs a spacious
hall or entry, occupying more space than is usually devoted to
such a purpose in modern times. This feature contributes to give
the whole house an airy, roomy, and convenient appearance; we can
breathe the freer by the aid of the broad passageway. The front
door of the hall looks up the stately avenue, which I have
already mentioned; and the opposite door opens into the orchard,
through which a path descends to the river. In the second story
we have at present fitted up three rooms,--one being our own
chamber, and the opposite one a guest-chamber, which contains the
most presentable of the old Doctor's ante-Revolutionary
furniture. After all, the moderns have invented nothing better,
as chamber furniture, than these chests of drawers, which stand
on four slender legs, and rear an absolute tower of mahogany to
the ceiling, the whole terminating in a fantastically carved
summit. Such a venerable structure adorns our guest-chamber. In
the rear of the house is the little room which I call my study,
and which, in its day, has witnessed the intellectual labors of
better students than myself. It contains, with some additions
and alterations, the furniture of my bachelor-room in Boston; but
there is a happier disposal ofthings now. There is a little vase of
flowers on one of the bookcases, and a larger bronze vase of
graceful ferns that surmounts the bureau. In size the room is
just what it ought to be; for I never could compress my thoughts
sufficiently to write in a very spacious room. It has three
windows, two of which are shaded by a large and beautiful
willow-tree, which sweeps against the overhanging eaves. On this
side we have a view into the orchard, and, beyond, a glimpse of
the river. The other window is the one from which Mr. Emerson,
the predecessor of Dr. Ripley, beheld the first fight of the
Revolution,--which he might well do, as the British troops were
drawn up within a hundred yards of the house; and on looking
forth just now, I could still perceive the western abutments of
the old bridge, the passage of which was contested. The new
monument is visible from base to summit.

Notwithstanding
all we have done to modernize the old place, we seem scarcely to
have disturbed its air of antiquity. It is evident that other
wedded pairs have spent their honeymoons here, that children have
been born here, and people have grown old and died in these
rooms, although for our behoof the same apartments have consented
to look cheerful once again. Then there are dark closets, and
strange nooks and corners, where the ghosts of former occupants
might hide themselves in the daytime, and stalk forth when night
conceals all our sacrilegious improvements. We have seen no
apparitions as yet; but we hear strange noises, especially in the
kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, we heard a
thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. Nay,
if I mistake not (for I was half asleep), there was a soundas of some person
crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This must
have been old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons. There is a
whole chest of them in the garret; but he need have no
apprehensions of our disturbing them. I never saw the old
patriarch myself, which I regret, as I should have been glad to
associate his venerable figure at ninety years of age with the
house in which he dwelt.

Externally the
house presents the same appearance as in the Doctor's day.
It had once a coat of white paint; but the storms and sunshine of
many years have almost obliterated it, and produced a sober,
grayish hue, which entirely suits the antique form of the
structure. To repaint its reverend face would be a real
sacrilege. It would look like old Dr. Ripley in a brown wig. I
hardly know why it is that our cheerful and lightsome repairs and
improvements in the interior of the house seem to be in perfectly
good taste, though the heavy old beams and high wainscoting of
the walls speak of ages gone by. But so it is. The cheerful
paper-hangings have the air of belonging to the old walls; and
such modernisms as astral lamps, card-tables, gilded
Cologne-bottles, silver taper-stands, and bronze and alabaster
flower-vases, do not seem at all impertinent. It is thus that an
aged man may keep his heart warm for new things and new friends,
and often furnish himself anew with ideas; though it would not be
graceful for him to attempt to suit his exterior to the passing
fashions of the day.

August
9th.--Our orchard in its day has been a very productive
and profitable one; and we were told that in one year it returned
Dr. Ripley a hundred dollars, besides defraying the expense of
repairingthe
house. It is now long past its prime: many of the trees are
moss-grown, and have dead and rotten branches intermixed among
the green and fruitful ones. And it may well be so; for I
suppose some of the trees may have been set out by Mr. Emerson,
who died in the first year of the Revolutionary War. Neither
will the fruit, probably, bear comparison with the delicate
productions of modern pomology. Most of the trees seem to have
abundant burdens upon them; but they are homely russet apples,
fit only for baking and cooking. (But we are yet to have
practical experience of our fruit.) Justice Shallow's
orchard, with its choice pippins and leather-coats, was doubtless
much superior. Nevertheless, it pleases me to think of the good
minister, walking in the shadows of these old, fantastically
shaped apple-trees, here plucking some of the fruit to taste,
there pruning away a too luxuriant branch, and all the while
computing how many barrels may be filled, and how large a sum
will be added to his stipend by their sale. And the same trees
offer their fruit to me as freely as they did to him,--their old
branches, like withered hands and arms, holding out apples of the
same flavor as they held out to Dr. Ripley in his lifetime.
Thus the trees, as living existences, form a peculiar link
between the dead and us. My fancy has always found something
very interesting in an orchard. Apple-trees, and all
fruit-trees, have a domestic character which brings them into
relationship with man. They have lost, in a great measure, the
wild nature of the forest-tree, and have grown humanized by
receiving the care of man, and by contributing to his wants.
They have become a part of the family; and their individual
characters are as well understood andappreciated as those of the human members.
One tree is harsh and crabbed, another mild; one is churlish and
illiberal, another exhausts itself with its free-hearted
bounties. Even the shapes of apple-trees have great
individuality, into such strange postures do they put themselves,
and thrust their contorted branches so grotesquely in all
directions. And when they have stood around a house for many
years, and held converse with successive dynasties of occupants,
and gladdened their hearts so often in the fruitful autumn, then
it would seem almost sacrilege to cut them down.

Besides the
apple-trees, there are various other kinds of fruit in close
vicinity to the house. When we first arrived, there were several
trees of ripe cherries, but so sour that we allowed them to
wither upon the branches. Two long rows of currant-bushes
supplied us abundantly for nearly four weeks. There are a good
many peach-trees, but all of an old date,--their branches rotten,
gummy, and mossy,--and their fruit, I fear, will be of very
inferior quality. They produce most abundantly, however,--the
peaches being almost as numerous as the leaves; and even the
sprouts and suckers from the roots of the old trees have fruit
upon them. Then there are pear-trees of various kinds, and one
or two quince-trees. On the whole, these fruit-trees, and the
other items and adjuncts of the place, convey a very agreeable
idea of the outward comfort in which the good old Doctor must
have spent his life. Everything seems to have fallen to his lot
that could possibly be supposed to render the life of a country
clergyman easy and prosperous. There is a barn, which probably
used to be filled annually with his hay and other agricultural
products. There are sheds, and a hen-house, and apigeon-house, and an old stone
pigsty, the open portion of which is overgrown with tall weeds,
indicating that no grunter has recently occupied it. . . . I
have serious thoughts of inducting a new incumbent in this part
of the parsonage. It is our duty to support a pig, even if we
have no design of feasting upon him; and, for my own part, I have
a great sympathy and interest for the whole race of porkers, and
should have much amusement in studying the character of a pig.
Perhaps I might try to bring out his moral and intellectual
nature, and cultivate his affections. A cat, too, and perhaps a
dog, would be desirable additions to our household.

August
10th.--The natural taste of man for the original
Adam's occupation is fast developing itself in me. I find
that I am a good deal interested in our garden, although, as it
was planted before we came here, I do not feel the same affection
for the plants that I should if the seed had been sown by my own
hands. It is something like nursing and educating another
person's children. Still, it was a very pleasant moment
when I gathered the first string-beans, which were the earliest
esculent that the garden contributed to our table. And I love to
watch the successive development of each new vegetable, and mark
its daily growth, which always affects me with surprise. It is
as if something were being created under my own inspection, and
partly by my own aid. One day, perchance, I look at my
bean-vines, and see only the green leaves clambering up the
poles; again, to-morrow, I give a second glance, and there are
the delicate blossoms; and a third day, on a somewhat closer
observation, I discover the tender young beans, hidingamong the foliage.
Then, each morning, I watch the swelling of the pods and
calculate how soon they will be ready to yield their treasures.
All this gives a pleasure and an ideality, hitherto unthought of,
to the business of providing sustenance for my family. I suppose
Adam felt it in Paradise; and, of merely and exclusively earthly
enjoyments, there are few purer and more harmless to be
experienced. Speaking of beans, by the way, they are a classical
food, and their culture must have been the occupation of many
ancient sages and heroes. Summer-squashes are a very pleasant
vegetable to be acquainted with. They grow in the forms of urns
and vases,--some shallow, others deeper, and all with a
beautifully scalloped edge. Almost any squash in our garden
might be copied by a sculptor, and would look lovely in marble,
or in china; and, if I could afford it, I would have exact
imitations of the real vegetable as portions of my
dining-service. They would be very appropriate dishes for
holding garden-vegetables. Besides the summer-squashes, we have
the crook-necked winter-squash, which I always delight to look
at, when it turns up its big rotundity to ripen in the autumn
sun. Except a pumpkin, there is no vegetable production that
imparts such an idea of warmth and comfort to the beholder. Our
own crop, however, does not promise to be very abundant; for the
leaves formed such a superfluous shade over the young blossoms,
that most of them dropped off without producing the germ of
fruit. Yesterday and to-day I have cut off an immense number of
leaves, and have thus given the remaining blossoms a chance to
profit by the air and sunshine; but the season is too far
advanced, I am afraid, for the squashes to attain any great bulk,
andgrow yellow in
the sun. We have muskmelons and watermelons, which promise to
supply us with as many as we can eat. After all, the greatest
interest of these vegetables does not seem to consist in their
being articles of food. It is rather that we love to see
something born into the world; and when a great squash or melon
is produced, it is a large and tangible existence, which the
imagination can seize hold of and rejoice in. I love, also, to
see my own works contributing to the life and well-being of
animate nature. It is pleasant to have the bees come and suck
honey out of my squash-blossoms, though, when they have laden
themselves, they fly away to some unknown hive, which will give
me back nothing in return for what my garden has given them. But
there is much more honey in the world, and so I am content.
Indian corn, in the prime and glory of its verdure, is a very
beautiful vegetable, both considered in the separate plant, and
in a mass in a broad field, rustling and waving, and surging up
and down in the breeze and sunshine of a summer afternoon. We
have as many as fifty hills, I should think, which will give us
an abundant supply. Pray Heaven that we may be able to eat it
all! for it is not pleasant to think that anything which Nature
has been at the pains to produce should be thrown away. But the
hens will be glad of our superfluity, and so will the pigs,
though we have neither hens nor pigs of our own. But hens we
must certainly keep. There is something very sociable and quiet,
and soothing, too, in their soliloquies and converse among
themselves; and, in an idle and half-meditative mood, it is very
pleasant to watch a party of hens picking up their daily
subsistence, with a gallant chanticleer in the midst of them.
Milton had evidently contemplated such a picture with delight.

I find that I
have not given a very complete idea of our garden, although it
certainly deserves an ample record in this chronicle, since my
labors in it are the only present labors of my life. Besides
what I have mentioned, we have cucumber-vines, which to-day
yielded us the first cucumber of the season, a bed of beets, and
another of carrots, and another of parsnips and turnips, none of
which promise us a very abundant harvest. In truth, the soil is
worn out, and, moreover, received very little manure this season.
Also, we have cabbages in superfluous abundance, inasmuch as we
neither of us have the least affection for them; and it would be
unreasonable to expect Sarah, the cook, to eat fifty head of
cabbages. Tomatoes, too, we shall have by and by. At our first
arrival, we found green peas ready for gathering, and these,
instead of the string-beans, were the first offering of the
garden to our board.

Saturday,
August 13th.--My life, at this time, is more like
that of a boy, externally, than it has been since I was really a
boy. It is usually supposed that the cares of life come with
matrimony; but I seem to have cast off all care, and live on with
as much easy trust in Providence as Adam could possibly have felt
before he had learned that there was a world beyond Paradise. My
chief anxiety consists in watching the prosperity of my
vegetables, in observing how they are affected by the rain or
sunshine, in lamenting the blight of one squash and rejoicing at
the luxurious growth of another. It is as if the original
relation between man and Nature were restored in my case, and as
if I were to look exclusively to her for the support of my Eve
and myself,--to trust to her for food andclothing, and all things needful,
with the full assurance that she would not fail me. The fight
with the world,--the struggle of a man among men,--the agony of
the universal effort to wrench the means of living from a host of
greedy competitors,--all this seems like a dream to me. My
business is merely to live and to enjoy; and whatever is
essential to life and enjoyment will come as naturally as the dew
from heaven. This is, practically at least, my faith. And so I
awake in the morning with a boyish thoughtlessness as to how the
outgoings of the day are to be provided for, and its incomings
rendered certain. After breakfast, I go forth into my garden,
and gather whatever the bountiful Mother has made fit for our
present sustenance; and of late days she generally gives me two
squashes and a cucumber, and promises me green corn and
shell-beans very soon. Then I pass down through our orchard to
the river-side, and ramble along its margin in search of flowers.
Usually I discern a fragrant white lily, here and there along the
shore, growing, with sweet prudishness, beyond the grasp of
mortal arm. But it does not escape me so. I know what is its
fitting destiny better than the silly flower knows for itself; so
I wade in, heedless of wet trousers, and seize the shy lily by
its slender stem. Thus I make prize of five or six, which are as
many as usually blossom within my reach in a single
morning;--some of them partially worm-eaten or blighted, like
virgins with an eating sorrow at the heart; others as fair and
perfect as Nature's own idea was, when she first imagined
this lovely flower. A perfect pond-lily is the most satisfactory
of flowers. Besides these, I gather whatever else of beautiful
chances to be growing in the moist soil by the river-side,--anamphibious tribe,
yet with more richness and grace than the wild-flowers of the
deep and dry woodlands and hedge-rows,--sometimes the white
arrow-head, always the blue spires and broad green leaves of the
pickerel-flower, which contrast and harmonize so well with the
white lilies. For the last two or three days, I have found
scattered stalks of the cardinal-flower, the gorgeous scarlet of
which it is a joy even to remember. The world is made brighter
and sunnier by flowers of such a hue. Even perfume, which
otherwise is the soul and spirit of a flower, may be spared when
it arrays itself in this scarlet glory. It is a flower of
thought and feeling, too; it seems to have its roots deep down in
the hearts of those who gaze at it. Other bright flowers
sometimes impress me as wanting sentiment; but it is not so with
this.

Well, having made
up my bunch of flowers, I return home with them. . . . Then I
ascend to my study, and generally read, or perchance scribble in
this journal, and otherwise suffer Time to loiter onward at his
own pleasure, till the dinner-hour. In pleasant days, the chief
event of the afternoon, and the happiest one of the day, is our
walk. . . . So comes the night; and I look back upon a day
spent in what the world would call idleness, and for which I
myself can suggest no more appropriate epithet, but which,
nevertheless, I cannot feel to have been spent amiss. True, it
might be a sin and shame, in such a world as ours, to spend a
lifetime in this manner; but for a few summer weeks it is good to
live as if this world were heaven. And so it is, and so it shall
be, although, in a little while, a flitting shadow of earthly
care and toil will mingle itself with our realities.

Monday,
August 15th.--George Hillard and his wife arrived
from Boston in the dusk of Saturday evening, to spend Sunday with
us. It was a pleasant sensation, when the coach rumbled up our
avenue, and wheeled round at the door; for I felt that I was
regarded as a man with a household,--a man having a tangible
existence and locality in the world,--when friends came to avail
themselves of our hospitality. It was a sort of acknowledgment
and reception of us into the corps of married people,--a sanction
by no means essential to our peace and well-being, but yet
agreeable enough to receive. So we welcomed them cordially at
the door, and ushered them into our parlor, and soon into the
supper-room. . . . The night flitted over us all, and passed
away, and up rose a gray and sullen morning, . . . and we had
a splendid breakfast of flapjacks, or slapjacks, and
whortleberries, which I gathered on a neighboring hill, and
perch, bream, and pout, which I hooked out of the river the
evening before. About nine o'clock, Hillard and I set out
for a walk to Walden Pond, calling by the way at Mr.
Emerson's, to obtain his guidance or directions, and he
accompanied us in his own illustrious person. We turned aside a
little from our way, to visit Mr. ----, a yeoman, of whose
homely and self-acquired wisdom Mr. Emerson has a very high
opinion. We found him walking in his fields, a short and
stalwart and sturdy personage of middle age, with a face of
shrewd and kind expression, and manners of natural courtesy. He
had a very free flow of talk; for, with a little induction from
Mr. Emerson, he began to discourse about the state of the
nation, agriculture, and business in general, uttering thoughts
that had come to him at the plough, and which had a sortof flavor of the
fresh earth about them. His views were sensible and
characteristic, and had grown in the soil where we found them; .
. . and he is certainly a man of intellectual and moral
substance, a sturdy fact, a reality, something to be felt and
touched, whose ideas seem to be dug out of his mind as he digs
potatoes, beets, carrots, and turnips out of the ground.

After leaving Mr.
----, we proceeded through wood-paths to Walden Pond, picking
blackberries of enormous size along the way. The pond itself was
beautiful and refreshing to my soul, after such long and
exclusive familiarity with our tawny and sluggish river. It lies
embosomed among wooded hills,--it is not very extensive, but
large enough for waves to dance upon its surface, and to look
like a piece of blue firmament, earth-encircled. The shore has a
narrow, pebbly strand, which it was worth a day's journey to
look at, for the sake of the contrast between it and the weedy,
oozy margin of the river. Farther within its depths, you
perceive a bottom of pure white sand, sparkling through the
transparent water, which, methought, was the very purest liquid
in the world. After Mr. Emerson left us, Hillard and I bathed
in the pond, and it does really seem as if my spirit, as well as
corporeal person, were refreshed by that bath. A good deal of
mud and river slime had accumulated on my soul; but these bright
waters washed them all away.

We returned home
in due season for dinner, . . . To my misfortune, however, a
box of Mediterranean wine proved to have undergone the acetous
fermentation; so that the splendor of the festival suffered some
diminution. Nevertheless, we ate our dinner with a good
appetite, and afterwards went universally to takeour several siestas. Meantime
there came a shower, which so besprinkled the grass and shrubbery
as to make it rather wet for our after-tea ramble. The chief
result of the walk was the bringing home of an immense burden of
the trailing clematis-vine, now just in blossom, and with which
all our flower-stands and vases are this morning decorated. On
our return we found Mr. and Mrs. S---- , and E. H----, who
shortly took their leave, and we sat up late, telling
ghost-stories. This morning, at seven, our friends left us. We
were both pleased with the visit, and so, I think, were our
guests.

Monday,
August 22d.--I took a walk through the woods
yesterday afternoon, to Mr. Emerson's, with a book which
Margaret Fuller had left, after a call on Saturday eve. I missed
the nearest way, and wandered into a very secluded portion of the
forest; for forest it might justly be called, so dense and sombre
was the shade of oaks and pines. Once I wandered into a tract so
overgrown with bushes and underbrush that I could scarcely force
a passage through. Nothing is more annoying than a walk of this
kind, where one is tormented by an innumerable host of petty
impediments. It incenses and depresses me at the same time.
Always when I flounder into the midst of bushes, which cross and
intertwine themselves about my legs, and brush my face, and seize
hold of my clothes, with their multitudinous grip,--always, in
such a difficulty, I feel as if it were almost as well to lie
down and die in rage and despair as to go one step farther. It
is laughable, after I have got out of the moil, to think how
miserably it affected me for themoment; but I had better learn patience
betimes, for there are many such bushy tracts in this vicinity,
on the margins of meadows, and my walks will often lead me into
them. Escaping from the bushes, I soon came to an open space
among the woods,--a very lovely spot, with the tall old trees
standing around as quietly as if no one had intruded there
throughout the whole summer. A company of crows were holding
their Sabbath on their summits. Apparently they felt themselves
injured or insulted by my presence; for, with one consent, they
began to Caw! caw! caw! and, launching themselves sullenly on
the air, took flight to some securer solitude. Mine, probably,
was the first human shape that they had seen all day long,--at
least, if they had been stationary in that spot; but perhaps they
had winged their way over miles and miles of country, had
breakfasted on the summit of Graylock, and dined at the base of
Wachusett, and were merely come to sup and sleep among the quiet
woods of Concord. But it was my impression at the time, that
they had sat still and silent on the tops of the trees all
through the Sabbath day, and I felt like one who should unawares
disturb an assembly of worshippers. A crow, however, has no real
pretensions to religion, in spite of his gravity of mien and
black attire. Crows are certainly thieves, and probably
infidels. Nevertheless, their voices yesterday were in admirable
accordance with the influences of the quiet, sunny, warm, yet
autumnal afternoon. They were so far above my head that their
loud clamor added to the quiet of the scene, instead of
disturbing it. There was no other sound, except the song of the
cricket, which is but an audible stillness; for, though it be
very loud and heard afar, yet the mind does not takenote of it as a
sound, so entirely does it mingle and lose its individuality
among the other characteristics of coming autumn. Alas for the
summer! The grass is still verdant on the hills and in the
valleys; the foliage of the trees is as dense as ever, and as
green; the flowers are abundant along the margin of the river,
and in the hedge-rows, and deep among the woods; the days, too,
are as fervid as they were a month ago; and yet in every breath
of wind and in every beam of sunshine there is an autumnal
influence. I know not how to describe it. Methinks there is a
sort of coolness amid all the heat, and a mildness in the
brightest of the sunshine. A breeze cannot stir without
thrilling me with the breath of autumn, and I behold its pensive
glory in the far, golden gleams among the long shadows of the
trees. The flowers, even the brightest of them,--the golden-rod
and the gorgeous cardinals,--the most glorious flowers of the
year,--have this gentle sadness amid their pomp. Pensive autumn
is expressed in the glow of every one of them. I have felt this
influence earlier in some years than in others. Sometimes autumn
may be perceived even in the early days of July. There is no
other feeling like that caused by this faint, doubtful, yet real
perception, or rather prophecy, of the year's decay, so
deliciously sweet and sad at the same time.

After leaving the
book at Mr. Emerson's I returned through the woods, and,
entering Sleepy Hollow, I perceived a lady reclining near the
path which bends along its verge. It was Margaret herself. She
had been there the whole afternoon, meditating or reading; for
she had a book in her hand, with some strange title, which I did
not understand, and have forgotten. She said that nobody had
broken her solitude, andwas just giving utterance to a theory that no
inhabitant of Concord ever visited Sleepy Hollow, when we saw a
group of people entering the sacred precincts. Most of them
followed a path which led them away from us; but an old man
passed near us, and smiled to see Margaret reclining on the
ground, and me sitting by her side. He made some remark about
the beauty of the afternoon, and withdrew himself into the shadow
of the wood. Then we talked about autumn, and about the
pleasures of being lost in the woods, and about the crows, whose
voices Margaret had heard; and about the experiences of early
childhood, whose influence remains upon the character after the
recollection of them has passed away; and about the sight of
mountains from a distance, and the view from their summits; and
about other matters of high and low philosophy. In the midst of
our talk, we heard footsteps above us, on the high bank; and
while the person was still hidden among the tree, he called to
Margaret, of whom he had gotten a glimpse. Then he emerged from
the green shade, and, behold! it was Mr. Emerson. He appeared
to have had a pleasant time; for he said that there were Muses in
the woods to-day, and whispers to be heard in the breezes. It
being now nearly six o'clock, we separated,--Margaret and
Mr. Emerson towards his home, and I towards mine. . . .

Last evening
there was the most beautiful moonlight that ever hallowed this
earthly world; and when I went to bathe in the river, which was
as calm as death, it seemed like plunging down into the sky. But
I had rather be on earth than even in the seventh heaven, just
now.

Wednesday,
August 24th.--I left home at five o'clock this
morning to catch some fish for breakfast. I shook our summer
apple-tree, and ate the golden apple which fell from it.
Methinks these early apples, which come as a golden promise
before the treasures of autumnal fruit, are almost more delicious
than anything that comes afterwards. We have but one such tree
in our orchard; but it supplies us with a daily abundance, and
probably will do so for at least a week to come. Meantime other
trees begin to cast their ripening windfalls upon the grass; and
when I taste them, and perceive their mellowed flavor and
blackening seeds, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with the impending
bounties of Providence. I suppose Adam, in Paradise, did not
like to see his fruits decaying on the ground, after he had
watched them through the sunny days of the world's first
summer. However, insects, at the worst, will hold a festival
upon them, so that they will not be thrown away, in the great
scheme of Nature. Moreover, I have one advantage over the
primeval Adam, inasmuch as there is a chance of disposing of my
superfluous fruits among people who inhabit no Paradise of their
own.

Passing a little
way down along the river-side, I threw in my line, and soon drew
out one of the smallest possible of fishes. It seemed to be a
pretty good morning for the angler,--an autumnal coolness in the
air, a clear sky, but with a fog across the lowlands and on the
surface of the river, which a gentle breeze sometimes condensed
into wreaths. At first, I could barely discern the opposite
shore of the river; but, as the sun arose, the vapors gradually
dispersed, till only a warm, smoky tint was left along the
water's surface. The farm-houses across the river made
theirappearance
out of the dusky cloud; the voices of boys were heard, shouting
to the cattle as they drove them to the pastures; a man whetted
his scythe, and set to work in a neighboring meadow. Meantime, I
continued to stand on the oozy margin of the stream, beguiling
the little fish; and though the scaly inhabitants of our river
partake somewhat of the character of their native element, and
are but sluggish biters, still I contrived to pull out not far
from two dozen. They were all bream, a broad, flat, almost
circular fish, shaped a good deal like a flounder, but swimming
on their edges, instead of on their sides. As far as mere
pleasure is concerned, it is hardly worth while to fish in our
river, it is so much like angling in a mud-puddle; and one does
not attach the idea of freshness and purity to the fishes, as we
do to those which inhabit swift, transparent streams, or haunt
the shores of the great briny deep. Standing on the weedy
margin, and throwing the line over the elder-bushes that dip into
the water, it seems as if we could catch nothing but frogs and
mud-turtles, or reptiles akin to them. And even when a fish of
reputable aspect is drawn out, one feels a shyness about touching
him. As to our river, its character was admirably expressed last
night by some one who said "it was too lazy to keep itself
clean." I might write pages and pages, and only obscure the
impression which this brief sentence conveys. Nevertheless, we
made bold to eat some of my fish for breakfast, and found them
very savory; and the rest shall meet with due entertainment at
dinner, together with some shell-beans, green corn, and cucumbers
from our garden; so this day's food comes directly and
entirely from beneficent Nature, without the intervention of any
third person between her and us.

Saturday,
August 27th.--A peach-tree, which grows beside our
house and brushes against the window, is so burdened with fruit
that I have had to prop it up. I never saw more splendid peaches
in appearance,--great, round, crimson-checked beauties,
clustering all over the tree. A pear-tree, likewise, is maturing
a generous burden of small, sweet fruit, which will require to be
eaten at about the same time as the peaches. There is something
pleasantly annoying in this superfluous abundance; it is like
standing under a tree of ripe apples, and giving it a shake, with
the intention of bringing down a single one, when, behold, a
dozen come thumping about our ears. But the idea of the infinite
generosity and exhaustless bounty of our Mother Nature is well
worth attaining; and I never had it so vividly as now, when I
find myself, with the few mouths which I am to feed, the sole
inheritor of the old clergyman's wealth of fruits. His
children, his friends in the village, and the clerical guests who
came to preach in his pulpit, were all wont to eat and be filled
from these trees. Now, all these hearty old people have passed
away, and in their stead is a solitary pair, whose appetites are
more than satisfied with the windfalls which the trees throw down
at their feet. Howbeit, we shall have now and then a guest to
keep our peaches and pears from decaying.

G. B----, my old
fellow-laborer at the community at Brook Farm, called on me last
evening, and dined here to-day. He has been cultivating
vegetables at Plymouth this summer, and selling them in the
market. What a singular mode of life for a man of education and
refinement,--to spend his days in hard and earnest bodily toil,
and then to convey the products of his labor, in a wheelbarrow,
to the publicmarket, and there retail them out,--a peck of
peas or beans, a bunch of turnips, a squash, a dozen ears of
green corn! Few men, without some eccentricity of character,
would have the moral strength to do this; and it is very striking
to find such strength combined with the utmost gentleness, and an
uncommon regularity of nature. Occasionally he returns for a day
or two to resume his place among scholars and idle people, as,
for instance, the present week, when he has thrown aside his
spade and hoe to attend the Commencement at Cambridge. He is a
rare man,--a perfect original, yet without any one salient point;
a character to be felt and understood, but almost impossible to
describe; for, should you seize upon any characteristic, it would
inevitably be altered and distorted in the process of writing it
down.

Our few remaining
days of summer have been latterly grievously darkened with
clouds. To-day there has been an hour or two of hot sunshine;
but the sun rose amid cloud and mist, and before he could dry up
the moisture of last night's shower upon the trees and
grass, the clouds have gathered between him and us again. This
afternoon the thunder rumbles in the distance, and I believe a
few drops of rain have fallen; but the weight of the shower has
burst elsewhere, leaving us nothing but its sullen gloom. There
is a muggy warmth in the atmosphere, which takes all the spring
and vivacity out of the mind and body.

Sunday,
August 28th.--Still another rainy day,--the
heaviest rain, I believe, that has fallen since we came to
Concord (not two months ago). There never was a more sombre
aspect of all external nature. I gaze from the open window of my
study somewhatdisconsolately, and observe the great
willow-tree which shades the house, and which has caught and
retained a whole cataract of rain among its leaves and boughs;
and all the fruit-trees, too, are dripping continually, even in
the brief intervals when the clouds give us a respite. If shaken
to bring down the fruit, they will discharge a shower upon the
head of him who stands beneath. The rain is warm, coming from
some southern region; but the willow attests that it is an
autumnal spell of weather, by scattering down no infrequent
multitude of yellow leaves, which rest upon the sloping roof of
the house, and strew the gravel-path and the grass. The other
trees do not yet shed their leaves, though in some of them a
lighter tint of verdure, tending towards yellow, is perceptible.
All day long we hear the water drip, drip, dripping, splash,
splash, splashing, from the eaves, and babbling and foaming into
the tubs which have been set out to receive it. The old
unpainted shingles and boards of the mansion and out-houses are
black with the moisture which they have imbibed. Looking at the
river, we perceive that its usually smooth and mirrored surface
is blurred by the infinity of rain-drops; the whole
landscape--grass, trees, and houses--has a completely
water-soaked aspect, as if the earth were wet through. The
wooded hill, about a mile distant, whither we went to gather
whortleberries, has a mist upon its summit, as if the demon of
the rain were enthroned there; and if we look to the sky, it
seems as if all the water that had been poured down upon us were
as nothing to what is to come. Once in a while, indeed, there is
a gleam of sky along the horizon, or a half-cheerful, half-sullen
lighting up of the atmosphere; the rain-drops cease to patter
down,except when
the trees shake off a gentle shower; but soon we hear the broad,
quiet, slow, and sure recommencement of the rain. The river, if
I mistake not, has risen considerably during the day, and its
current will acquire some degree of energy.

In this sombre
weather, when some mortals almost forget that there ever was any
golden sunshine, or ever will be any hereafter, others seem
absolutely to radiate it from their own hearts and minds. The
gloom cannot pervade them; they conquer it, and drive it quite
out of their sphere, and create a moral rainbow of hope upon the
blackest cloud. As for myself, I am little other than a cloud at
such seasons, but such persons contrive to make me a sunny one,
shining all through me. And thus, even without the support of a
stated occupation, I survive these sullen days and am happy.

This morning we
read the Sermon on the Mount. In the course of the forenoon, the
rain abated for a season, and I went out and gathered some corn
and summer-squashes, and picked up the windfalls of apples and
pears and peaches. Wet, wet, wet,--everything was wet; the
blades of the corn-stalks moistened me; the wet grass soaked my
boots quite through; the trees threw their reserved showers upon
my head; and soon the remorseless rain began anew, and drove me
into the house. When shall we be able to walk again to the far
hills, and plunge into the deep woods, and gather more cardinals
along the river's margin? The track along which we trod is
probably under water now. How inhospitable Nature is during a
rain! In the fervid heat of sunny days, she still retains some
degree of mercy for us; she has shady spots, whither the sun
cannot come; but she providesno shelter against her storms. It makes one
shiver to think how dripping with wet are those deep, umbrageous
nooks, those overshadowed banks, where we find such enjoyment
during sultry afternoons. And what becomes of the birds in such
a soaking rain as this? Is hope and an instinctive faith so
mixed up with their nature that they can be cheered by the
thought that the sunshine will return? or do they think, as I
almost do, that there is to be no sunshine any more? Very
disconsolate must they be among the dripping leaves; and when a
single summer makes so important a portion of their lives, it
seems hard that so much of it should be dissolved in rain. I,
likewise, am greedy of the summer days for my own sake; the life
of man does not contain so many of them that one can be spared
without regret.

Tuesday,
August 30th.--I was promised, in the midst of
Sunday's rain, that Monday should be fair, and, behold! the
sun came back to us, and brought one of the most perfect days
ever made since Adam was driven out of Paradise. By the by, was
there ever any rain in Paradise? If so, how comfortless must
Eve's bower have been! and what a wretched and rheumatic
time must they have had on their bed of wet roses! It makes me
shiver to think of it. Well, it seemed as if the world was newly
created yesterday morning, and I beheld its birth; for I had
risen before the sun was over the hill, and had gone forth to
fish. How instantaneously did all dreariness and heaviness of
the earth's spirit flit away before one smile of the
beneficent sun! This proves that all gloom is but a dream and a
shadow, and that cheerfulness is the real truth. It requires
many clouds,long
brooding over us, to make us sad, but one gleam of sunshine
always suffices to cheer up the landscape. The banks of the
river actually laughed when the sunshine fell upon them; and the
river itself was alive and cheerful, and, by way of fun and
amusement, it had swept away many wreaths of meadow-hay, and old,
rotten branches of trees, and all such trumpery. These matters
came floating downwards, whirling round and round in the eddies,
or hastening onward in the main current; and many of them, before
this time, have probably been carried into the Merrimack, and
will be borne onward to the sea. The spots where I stood to
fish, on my preceding excursion, were now under water; and the
tops of many of the bushes, along the river's margin, barely
emerged from the stream. Large spaces of meadow are
overflowed.

There was a
northwest-wind throughout the day; and as many clouds, the
remnants of departed gloom, were scattered about the sky, the
breeze was continually blowing them across the sun. For the most
part, they were gone again in a moment; but sometimes the shadow
remained long enough to make me dread a return of sulky weather.
Then would come the burst of sunshine, making me feel as if a
rainy day were henceforth an impossibility. . . .

He is a good sort
of humdrum parson enough, and well fitted to increase the stock
of manuscript sermons, of which there must be a fearful quantity
already in the world. Mr. ----, however, is probably one of the
best and most useful of his class, because no suspicion of the
necessity of his profession, constituted as it now is, to
mankind, and of his own usefulness and success in it, has
hitherto disturbed him; andtherefore, he labors with faith and
confidence, as ministers did a hundred years ago.

After the
visitors were gone, I sat at the gallery window, looking down the
avenue; and soon there appeared an elderly woman,--a homely,
decent old matron, dressed in a dark gown, and with what seemed a
manuscript book under her arm. The wind sported with her gown,
and blew her veil across her face, and seemed to make game of
her, though on a nearer view she looked like a sad old creature,
with a pale, thin countenance, and somewhat of a wild and
wandering expression. She had a singular gait, reeling, as it
were, and yet not quite reeling, from one side of the path to the
other; going onward as if it were not much matter whether she
went straight or crooked. Such were my observations as she
approached through the scattered sunshine and shade of our long
avenue, until, reaching the door, she gave a knock, and inquired
for the lady of the house. Her manuscript contained a
certificate, stating that the old woman was a widow from a
foreign land, who had recently lost her son, and was now utterly
destitute of friends and kindred, and without means of support.
Appended to the certificate there was a list of names of people
who had bestowed charity on her, with the amounts of the several
donations,--none, as I recollect, higher than twenty-five cents.
Here is a strange life, and a character fit for romance and
poetry. All the early part of her life, I suppose, and much of
her widowhood, were spent in the quiet of a home, with kinsfolk
around her, and children, and the lifelong gossiping
acquaintances that some women always create about them. But in
her decline she has wandered away from all these, and from her
native country itself, and is a vagrant, yet withsomething of the homeliness and
decency of aspect belonging to one who has been a wife and
mother, and has had a roof of her own above her head,--and, with
all this, a wildness proper to her present life. I have a liking
for vagrants of all sorts, and never, that I know of, refused my
mite to a wandering beggar, when I had anything in my own pocket.
There is so much wretchedness in the world, that we may safely
take the word of any mortal professing to need our assistance;
and, even should we be deceived, still the good to ourselves
resulting from a kind act is worth more than the trifle by which
we purchase it. It is desirable, I think, that such persons
should be permitted to roam through our land of plenty,
scattering the seeds of tenderness and charity, as birds of
passage bear the seeds of precious plants from land to land,
without even dreaming of the office which they perform.

Thursday,
September 1st.--Mr. Thoreau dined with us
yesterday. . . . He is a keen and delicate observer of
nature,--a genuine observer,--which, I suspect, is almost as rare
a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for
his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him
secrets which few others are allowed to witness. He is familiar
with beast, fish, fowl, and reptile, and has strange stories to
tell of adventures and friendly passages with these lower
brethren of mortality. Herb and flower, likewise, wherever they
grow, whether in garden or wildwood, are his familiar friends.
He is also on intimate terms with the clouds, and can tell the
portents of storms. It is a characteristic trait, that he has a
great regard for the memory of the Indian tribes, whose wild life
would have suited him so well; and,strange to say, he seldom walks over a
ploughed field without picking up an arrow-point, spear-head, or
other relic of the red man, as if their spirits willed him to be
the inheritor of their simple wealth.

With all this he
has more than a tincture of literature,--a deep and true taste
for poetry, especially for the elder poets, and he is a good
writer,--at least he has written a good article, a rambling
disquisition on Natural History, in the last "Dial,"
which, he says, was chiefly made up from journals of his own
observations. Methinks this article gives a very fair image of
his mind and character,--so true, innate, and literal in
observation, yet giving the spirit as well as letter of what he
sees, even as a lake reflects its wooded banks, showing every
leaf, yet giving the wild beauty of the whole scene. Then there
are in the article passages of cloudy and dreamy metaphysics, and
also passages where his thoughts seem to measure and attune
themselves into spontaneous verse, as they rightfully may, since
there is real poetry in them. There is a basis of good sense and
of moral truth, too, throughout the article, which also is a
reflection of his character; for he is not unwise to think and
feel, and I find him a healthy and wholesome man to know.

After dinner (at
which we cut the first watermelon and muskmelon that our garden
has grown), Mr. Thoreau and I walked up the bank of the river,
and at a certain point he shouted for his boat. Forthwith a
young man paddled it across, and Mr. Thoreau and I voyaged
farther up the stream, which soon became more beautiful than any
picture, with its dark and quiet sheet of water, half shaded,
half sunny, between high and wooded banks. The late rains have
swollen the stream so much that many trees are standing upto their knees, as
it were, in the water, and boughs, which lately swung high in
air, now dip and drink deep of the passing wave. As to the poor
cardinals which glowed upon the bank a few days since, I could
see only a few of their scarlet hats, peeping above the tide.
Mr. Thoreau managed the boat so perfectly, either with two
paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will,
and to require no physical effort to guide it. He said that,
when some Indians visited Concord a few years ago, he found that
he had acquired, without a teacher, their precise method of
propelling and steering a canoe. Nevertheless he was desirous of
selling the boat of which he was so fit a pilot, and which was
built by his own hands; so I agreed to take it, and accordingly
became possessor of the Musketaquid. I wish I could acquire the
aquatic skill of the original owner.

September 2d.--Yesterday
afternoon Mr. Thoreau arrived with the boat. The adjacent
meadow being overflowed by the rise of the stream, he had rowed
directly to the foot of the orchard, and landed at the bars,
after floating over forty or fifty yards of water where people
were lately making hay. I entered the boat with him, in order to
have the benefit of a lesson in rowing and paddling, . . . I
managed, indeed, to propel the boat by rowing with two oars, but
the use of the single paddle is quite beyond my present skill.
Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will
the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would
immediately take that course, as if imbued with the spirit of the
steersman. It may be so with him, but it is certainly not so
with me. The boat seemed to be bewitched, and turned its head
toevery point of
the compass except the right one. He then took the paddle
himself, and, though I could observe nothing peculiar in his
management of it, the Musketaquid immediately became as docile as
a trained steed. I suspect that she has not yet transferred her
affections from her old master to her new one. By and by, when
we are better acquainted, she will grow more tractable. . . .
We propose to change her name from Musketaquid (the Indian name
of the Concord River, meaning the river of meadows) to the
Pond-Lily, which will be very beautiful and appropriate, as,
during the summer season, she will bring home many a cargo of
pond-lilies from along the river s weedy shore. It is not very
likely that I shall make such long voyages in her as Mr. Thoreau
has made. He once followed our river down to the Merrimack, and
thence, I believe, to Newburyport in this little craft.

In the evening,
---- ----called to see us, wishing to talk with me about a Boston
periodical, of which he had heard that I was to be editor, and to
which he desired to contribute. He is an odd and clever young
man, with nothing very peculiar about him,--some originality and
self-inspiration in his character, but none, or, very little, in
his intellect. Nevertheless, the lad himself seems to feel as if
he were a genius. I like him well enough, however; but, after
all, these originals in a small way, after one has seen a few of
them, become more dull and commonplace than even those who keep
the ordinary pathway of life. They have a rule and a routine,
which they follow with as little variety as other people do their
rule and routine; and when once we have fathomed their mystery,
nothing can be more wearisome. An innate perceptionand reflection of
truth give the only sort of originality that does not finally
grow intolerable.

September 4th.--I made a voyage
in the Pond-Lily all by myself yesterday morning, and was much
encouraged by my success in causing the boat to go whither I
would. I have always liked to be afloat, but I think I have
never adequately conceived of the enjoyment till now, when I
begin to feel a power over that which supports me. I suppose I
must have felt something like this sense of triumph when I first
learned to swim; but I have forgotten it. Oh that I could run
wild!--that is, that I could put myself into a true relation with
Nature, and be on friendly terms with all congenial elements.

We had a
thunder-storm last evening; and to-day has been a cool, breezy,
autumnal day, such as my soul and body love.

September 18th.--How the
summer-time flits away, even while it seems to be loitering
onward, arm in arm with autumn! Of late I have walked but little
over the hills and through the woods, my leisure being chiefly
occupied with my boat, which I have now learned to manage with
tolerable skill. Yesterday afternoon I made a voyage alone up
the North Branch of Concord River. There was a strong west-wind
blowing dead against me, which, together with the current,
increased by the height of the water, made the first part of the
passage pretty toilsome. The black river was all dimpled over
with little eddies and whirlpools; and the breeze, moreover,
caused the billows to beat against the bow of the boat, with a
sound like the flapping of a bird's wing. The
water-weeds,where
they were discernible through the tawny water, were straight
outstretched by the force of the current, looking as if they were
forced to hold on to their roots with all their might. If for a
moment I desisted from paddling, the head of the boat was swept
round by the combined might of wind and tide. However, I toiled
onward stoutly, and, entering the North Branch, soon found myself
floating quietly along a tranquil stream, sheltered from the
breeze by the woods and a lofty hill. The current, likewise,
lingered along so gently that it was merely a pleasure to propel
the boat against it. I never could have conceived that there was
so beautiful a river-scene in Concord as this of the North
Branch. The stream flows through the midmost privacy and deepest
heart of a wood, which, as if but half satisfied with its
presence, calm, gentle, and unobtrusive as it is, seems to crowd
upon it, and barely to allow it passage; for the trees are rooted
on the very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches
into it. On one side there is a high bank, forming the side of a
hill, the Indian name of which I have forgotten, though Mr.
Thoreau told it to me; and here, in some instances, the trees
stand leaning over the river, stretching out their arms as if
about to plunge in headlong. On the other side, the bank is
almost on a level with the water; and there the quiet
congregation of trees stood with feet in the flood, and fringed
with foliage down to its very surface. Vines here and there
twine themselves about bushes or aspens or alder-trees, and hang
their clusters (though scanty and infrequent this season) so that
I can reach them from my boat. I scarcely remember a scene of
more complete and lovely seclusion than the passage of the river
through this wood. Even an Indian canoe, in oldentimes, could not have floated
onward in deeper solitude than my boat. I have never elsewhere
had such an opportunity to observe how much more beautiful
reflection is than what we call reality. The sky, and the
clustering foliage on either hand, and the effect of sunlight as
it found its way through the shade, giving lightsome hues in
contrast with the quiet depth of the prevailing tints,--all these
seemed unsurpassably beautiful when beheld in upper air. But on
gazing downward, there they were, the same even to the minutest
particular, yet arrayed in ideal beauty, which satisfied the
spirit incomparably more than the actual scene. I am half
convinced that the reflection is indeed the reality, the real
thing which Nature imperfectly images to our grosser sense. At
any rate, the disembodied shadow is nearest to the soul.

There were many
tokens of autumn in this beautiful picture. Two or three of the
trees were actually dressed in their coats of many colors,--the
real scarlet and gold which they wear before they put on
mourning. These stood on low, marshy spots, where a frost has
probably touched them already. Others were of a light, fresh
green, resembling the hues of spring, though this, likewise, is a
token of decay. The great mass of the foliage, however, appears
unchanged; but ever and anon down came a yellow leaf, half
flitting upon the air, half falling through it, and finally
settling upon the water. A multitude of these were floating here
and there along the river, many of them curling upward, so as to
form little boats, fit for fairies to voyage in. They looked
strangely pretty, with yet a melancholy prettiness, as they
floated along. The general aspect of the river, however,
differed but little from that of summer,--at least the
differencedefies
expression. It is more in the character of the rich yellow
sunlight than in aught else. The water of the stream has now a
thrill of autumnal coolness; yet whenever a broad gleam fell
across it, through an interstice of the foliage, multitudes of
insects were darting to and fro upon its surface. The sunshine,
thus falling across the dark river, has a most beautiful effect.
It burnishes it, as it were, and yet leaves it as dark as
ever.

On my return, I
suffered the boat to float almost of its own will down the
stream, and caught fish enough for this morning's breakfast.
But, partly from a qualm of conscience, I finally put them all
into the water again, and saw them swim away as if nothing had
happened.

Monday,
October 10th.--A long while, indeed, since my last
date. But the weather has been generally sunny and pleasant,
though often very cold; and I cannot endure to waste anything so
precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have
spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air. My chief
amusement has been boating up and down the river. A week or two
ago (September 27 and 28) I went on a pedestrian excursion with
Mr. Emerson, and was gone two days and one night, it being the
first and only night that I have spent away from home. We were
that night at the village of Harvard, and the next morning walked
three miles farther, to the Shaker village, where we breakfasted.
Mr. Emerson had a theological discussion with two of the Shaker
brethren; but the particulars of it have faded from my memory;
and all the other adventures of the tour have now so lost their
freshness that I cannotadequately recall them. Wherefore let them
rest untold. I recollect nothing so well as the aspect of some
fringed gentians, which we saw growing by the roadside, and which
were so beautiful that I longed to turn back and pluck them.
After an arduous journey, we arrived safe home in the afternoon
of the second day,--the first time that I ever came home in my
life; for I never had a home before. On Saturday of the same
week, my friend D. R---- came to see us, and stayed till Tuesday
morning. On Wednesday there was a cattle-show in the village, of
which I would give a description, if it had possessed any
picturesque points. The foregoing are the chief outward events
of our life.

In the mean
time autumn has been advancing, and is said to be a month earlier
than usual. We had frosts, sufficient to kill the bean and
squash vines, more than a fortnight ago; but there has since been
some of the most delicious Indian-summer weather that I ever
experienced,--mild, sweet, perfect days, in which the warm
sunshine seemed to embrace the earth and all earth's
children with love and tenderness. Generally, however, the
bright days have been vexed with winds from the northwest,
somewhat too keen and high for comfort. These winds have strewn
our avenue with withered leaves, although the trees still retain
some density of foliage, which is now imbrowned or otherwise
variegated by autumn. Our apples, too, have been falling,
falling, falling; and we have picked the fairest of them from the
dewy grass, and put them in our storeroom and elsewhere. On
Thursday, John Flint began to gather those which remained on the
trees; and I suppose they will amount to nearly twenty barrels,
or perhaps more. As usualwhen I have anything to sell, apples are very
low indeed in price, and will not fetch me more than a dollar a
barrel. I have sold my share of the potato-field for twenty
dollars and ten bushels of potatoes for my own use. This may
suffice for the economical history of our recent life.

12
o'clock, M.--Just now I heard a sharp tapping at the window
of my study, and, looking up from my book (a volume of Rabelais),
behold! the head of a little bird, who seemed to demand
admittance! He was probably attempting to get a fly, which was
on the pane of glass against which he rapped; and on my first
motion the feathered visitor took wing. This incident had a
curious effect on me. It impressed me as if the bird had been a
spiritual visitant, so strange was it that this little wild thing
should seem to ask our hospitality.

November 8th.--I am sorry that
our journal has fallen so into neglect; but I see no chance of
amendment. All my scribbling propensities will be far more than
gratified in writing nonsense for the press; so that any
gratuitous labor of the pen becomes peculiarly distasteful.
Since the last date, we have paid a visit of nine days to Boston
and Salem, whence we returned a week ago yesterday. Thus we lost
above a week of delicious autumnal weather, which should have
been spent in the woods or upon the river. Ever since our
return, however, until to-day, there has been a succession of
genuine Indian-summer days, with gentle winds, or none at all,
and a misty atmosphere, which idealizes all nature, and a mild,
beneficent sunshine, inviting one to lie down in a nook and
forgetall earthly
care. To-day the sky is dark and lowering, and occasionally lets
fall a few sullen tears. I suppose we must bid farewell to
Indian summer now, and expect no more love and tenderness from
Mother Nature till next spring be well advanced. She has already
made herself as unlovely in outward aspect as can well be. We
took a walk to Sleepy Hollow yesterday, and beheld scarcely a
green thing, except the everlasting verdure of the family of
pines, which, indeed, are trees to thank God for at this season.
A range of young birches had retained a pretty liberal coloring
of yellow or tawny leaves, which became very cheerful in the
sunshine. There were one or two oak-trees whose foliage still
retained a deep, dusky red, which looked rich and warm; but most
of the oaks had reached the last stage of autumnal decay,--the
dusky brown hue. Millions of their leaves strew the woods and
rustle underneath the foot; but enough remain upon the boughs to
make a melancholy harping when the wind sweeps over them. We
found some fringed gentians in the meadow, most of them blighted
and withered; but a few were quite perfect. The other day, since
our return from Salem, I found a violet; yet it was so cold that
day, that a large pool of water, under the shadow of some trees,
had remained frozen from morning till afternoon. The ice was so
thick as not to be broken by some sticks and small stones which I
threw upon it. But ice and snow too will soon be no
extraordinary matters with us.

During the
last week we have had three stoves put up, and henceforth no
light of a cheerful fire will gladden us at eventide. Stoves are
detestable in every respect, except that they keep us perfectly
comfortable.

Thursday,
November 24th.--This is Thanksgiving Day, a good
old festival, and we have kept it with our hearts, and, besides,
have made good cheer upon our turkey and pudding, and pies and
custards, although none sat at our board but our two selves.
There was a new and livelier sense, I think, that we have at last
found a home, and that a new family has been gathered since the
last Thanksgiving Day. There have been many bright, cold days
latterly,--so cold that it has required a pretty rapid pace to
keep one's self warm a-walking. Day before yesterday I saw
a party of boys skating on a pond of water that has overflowed a
neighboring meadow. Running water has not yet frozen.
Vegetation has quite come to a stand, except in a few sheltered
spots. In a deep ditch we found a tall plant of the freshest and
healthiest green, which looked as if it must have grown within
the last few weeks. We wander among the wood-paths, which are
very pleasant in the sunshine of the afternoons, the trees
looking rich and warm,--such of them, I mean, as have retained
their russet leaves; and where the leaves are strewn along the
paths, or heaped plentifully in some hollow of the hills, the
effect is not without a charm. To-day the morning rose with
rain, which has since changed to snow and sleet; and now the
landscape is as dreary as can well be imagined,--white, with the
brownness of the soil and withered grass everywhere peeping out.
The swollen river, of a leaden hue, drags itself sullenly along;
and this may be termed the first winter's day.

Friday,
March 31st, 1843.--The first month of spring is
already gone; and still the snow lies deep on hill and valley,
and the river is still frozen from bankto bank, although a late rain has
caused pools of water to stand on the surface of the ice, and the
meadows are overflowed into broad lakes. Such a protracted
winter has not been known for twenty years, at least. I have
almost forgotten the wood-paths and shady places which I used to
know so well last summer; and my views are so much confined to
the interior of our mansion, that sometimes, looking out of the
window, I am surprised to catch a glimpse of houses, at no great
distance, which had quite passed out of my recollection. From
present appearances, another month may scarcely suffice to wash
away all the snow from the open country; and in the woods and
hollows it may linger yet longer. The winter will not have been
a day less than five months long; and it would not be unfair to
call it seven. A great space, indeed, to miss the smile of
Nature, in a single year of human life. Even out of the midst of
happiness I have sometimes sighed and groaned; for I love the
sunshine and the green woods, and the sparkling blue water; and
it seems as if the picture of our inward bliss should be set in a
beautiful frame of outward nature. . . . As to the daily
course of our life, I have written with pretty commendable
diligence, averaging from two to four hours a day; and the result
is seen in various magazines. I might have written more, if it
had seemed worth while, but I was content to earn only so much
gold as might suffice for our immediate wants, having prospect of
official station and emolument which would do away with the
necessity of writing for bread. Those prospects have not yet had
their fulfilment; and we are well content to wait, because an
office would inevitably remove us from our present happy
home,--at least from an outward home; for there is an inner onethat will accompany
us wherever we go. Meantime, the magazine people do not pay
their debts; so that we taste some of the inconveniences of
poverty. It is an annoyance, not a trouble.

Every day, I
trudge through snow and slosh to the village, look into the
post-office, and spend an hour at the reading-room; and then
return home, generally without having spoken a word to a human
being. . . . In the way of exercise I saw and split wood,
and, physically, I never was in a better condition than now.
This is chiefly owing, doubtless, to a satisfied heart, in aid of
which comes the exercise above mentioned, and about a fair
proportion of intellectual labor.

On the 9th of
this month, we left home again on a visit to Boston and Salem. I
alone went to Salem, where I resumed all my bachelor habits for
nearly a fortnight, leading the same life in which ten years of
my youth flitted away like a dream. But how much changed was I!
At last I had caught hold of a reality which never could be taken
from me. It was good thus to get apart from my happiness, for
the sake of contemplating it. On the 2lst, I returned to Boston,
and went out to Cambridge to dine with Longfellow, whom I had not
seen since his return from Europe. The next day we came back to
our old house, which had been deserted all this time; for our
servant had gone with us to Boston.

Friday,
April 7th.--My wife has gone to Boston to see her
sister M----, who is to be married in two or three weeks, and
then immediately to visit Europe for six months, . . . I
betook myself to sawing and splitting wood; there being an inward
unquietness which demanded active exercise, and I sawed, I
think,more
briskly than ever before. When I reëntered the house, it
was with somewhat of a desolate feeling; yet not without an
intermingled pleasure, as being the more conscious that all
separation was temporary, and scarcely real, even for the little
time that it may last. After my solitary dinner, I lay down,
with the "Dial" in my hand, and attempted to sleep; but
sleep would not come. . . . So I arose, and began this record
in the journal, almost at the commencement of which I was
interrupted by a visit from Mr. Thoreau, who came to return a
book, and to announce his purpose of going to reside at Staten
Island, as private tutor in the family of Mr. Emerson's
brother. We had some conversation upon this subject, and upon
the spiritual advantages of change of place, and upon the
"Dial," and upon Mr. Alcott, and other kindred or
concatenated subjects. I am glad, on Mr. Thoreau's own
account, that he is going away, as he is out of health, and may
be benefited by his removal; but, on my account, I should like to
have him remain here, he being one of the few persons, I think,
with whom to hold intercourse is like hearing the wind among the
boughs of a forest-tree; and, with all this wild freedom, there
is high and classic cultivation in him too. . . .

I had a purpose,
if circumstances would permit, of passing the whole term of my
wife's absence without speaking a word to any human being;
but now my Pythagorean vow has been broken, within three or four
hours after her departure.

Saturday,
April 8th.--After journalizing yesterday afternoon,
I went out and sawed and split wood till teatime, then studied
German (translating "Lenore"), with an occasional
glance at a beautifulsunset, which I could not enjoy sufficiently
by myself to induce me to lay aside the book. After lamplight,
finished "Lenore," and drowsed over Voltaire's
"Candide," occasionally refreshing myself with a tune
from Mr. Thoreau's musical-box, which he had left in my
keeping. The evening was but a dull one.

I retired soon
after nine, and felt some apprehension that the old Doctor's
ghost would take this opportunity to visit me; but I rather think
his former visitations have not been intended for me, and that I
am not sufficiently spiritual for ghostly communication. At all
events, I met with no disturbance of the kind, and slept soundly
enough till six o'clock or thereabouts. The forenoon was
spent with the pen in my hand, and sometimes I had the glimmering
of an idea, and endeavored to materialize it in words; but on the
whole my mind was idly vagrant, and refused to work to any
systematic purpose. Between eleven amid twelve I went to the
post-office, but found no letter; then spent above an hour
reading at the Athenæum. On my way home, I encountered Mr.
Flint, for the first time these many weeks, although he is our
next neighbor in one direction. I inquired if he could sell us
some potatoes, and he promised to send half a bushel for trial.
Also, he encouraged me to hope that he might buy a barrel of our
apples. After my encounter with Mr. Flint, I returned to our
lonely old abbey, opened the door without the usual heart-spring,
ascended to my study, and began to read a tale of Tieck. Slow
work, and dull work too! Anon, Molly, the cook, rang the bell
for dinner,--a sumptuous banquet of stewed veal and macaroni, to
which I sat down in solitary state. My appetite served me
sufficiently to eat with, but not for enjoyment. Nothing has a
zestin my present
widowed state. [Thus far I had written, when Mr. Emerson
called.] After dinner, I lay down on the couch, with the
"Dial" in my hand as a soporific, and had a short nap;
then began to journalize.

Mr. Emerson came,
with a sunbeam in his face; and we had as good a talk as I ever
remember to have had with him. He spoke of Margaret Fuller, who,
he says, has risen perceptibly into a higher state since their
last meeting. [There rings the tea-bell.] Then we discoursed of
Ellery Channing, a volume of whose poems is to be immediately
published, with revisions by Mr. Emerson himself and Mr. Sam G.
Ward. . . . He calls them "poetry for poets." Next
Mr. Thoreau was discussed, and his approaching departure; in
respect to which we agreed pretty well, . . . We talked of
Brook Farm, and the singular moral aspects which it presents, and
the great desirability that its progress and developments should
be observed and its history written; also of C. N----, who, it
appears, is passing through a new moral phasis. He is silent,
inexpressive, talks little or none, and listens without response,
except a sardonic laugh and some of his friends think that he is
passing into permanent eclipse. Various other matters were
considered or glanced at, and finally, between five and six
o'clock, Mr. Emerson took his leave. I then went out to
chop wood, my allotted space for which had been very much
abridged by his visit; but I was not sorry. I went on with the
journal for a few minutes before tea, and have finished the
present record in the setting sunshine and gathering dusk. . .
.

Salem.--. . .
Here I am, in my old chamber,where I produced those stupendous works of
fiction
which have since impressed the universe with wonderment and awe!
To this chamber, doubtless, in all succeeding ages, pilgrims
will come to pay their tribute of reverence; they will put off
their shoes at the threshold for fear of desecrating the tattered
old carpets! "There," they will exclaim, "is the
very bed in which he slumbered, and where he was visited by those
ethereal visions which he afterwards fixed forever in glowing
words! There is the wash-stand at which this exalted personage
cleansed himself from the stains of earth, and rendered his
outward man a fitting exponent of the pure soul within. There,
in its mahogany frame, is the dressing-glass, which often
reflected that noble brow, those hyacinthine locks, that mouth
bright with smiles or tremulous with feeling, that flashing or
melting eye, that--in short, every item of the magnanimous face
of this unexampled man. There is the pine table,--there the old
flag-bottomed chair on which he sat, and at which he scribbled,
during his agonies of inspiration! There is the old chest of
drawers in which he kept what shirts a poor author may he
supposed to have possessed! There is the closet in which was
reposited his threadbare suit of black! There is the worn-out
shoe-brush with which this polished writer polished his boots.
There is"--but I believe this will be pretty much all, so
here I close the catalogue. . . .

A cloudy veil
stretches over the abyss of my nature. I have, however, no love
of secrecy and darkness. I am glad to think that God sees
through my heart, and, if any angel has power to penetrate into
it, he is welcome to know everything that is there. Yes, and so
may any mortal who is capable of full sympathy,and therefore worthy to come into
my depths. But he must find his own way there. I can neither
guide nor enlighten him. It is this involuntary reserve, I
suppose, that has given the objectivity to my writings; and when
people think that I am pouring myself out in a tale or an essay,
I am merely telling what is common to human nature, not what is
peculiar to myself. I sympathize with them, not they with me. .
. .

I have recently
been both lectured about and preached about here in my native
city; the preacher was Rev. Mr. Fox, of Newburyport; but how he
contrived to put me into a sermon I know not. I trust he took
for his text, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is
no guile."

Salem,
March 12th.--. . . That poor home! how desolate
it is now! Last night, being awake, . . . my thoughts
travelled back to the lonely old manse; and it seemed as if I
were wandering up stairs and down stairs all by myself. My fancy
was almost afraid to be there alone. I could see every object in
a dim, gray light,--our chamber, the study, all in confusion; the
parlor, with the fragments of that abortive breakfast on the
table, and the precious silver forks, and the old bronze image,
keeping its solitary stand upon the mantel-piece. Then,
methought, the wretched Vigwiggie came, and jumped upon the
window-sill, and clung there with her fore paws, mewing dismally
for admittance, which I could not grant her, being there myself
only in the spirit. And then came the ghost of the old Doctor,
stalking through the gallery, and down the staircase, and peeping
into the parlor; and though I was wide awake, and conscious of
being so many miles from the spot, still it was quite awful tothink of the ghost
having sole possession of our home; for I could not quite
separate myself from it, after all. Somehow the Doctor and I
seemed to be there tête-à-tête .
. . . I believe I did not have any fantasies about the ghostly
kitchen-maid; but I trust Mary left the flat-irons within her
reach, so that she may do all her ironing while we are away, and
never disturb us more at midnight. I suppose she comes thither
to iron her shroud, and perhaps, likewise, to smooth the
Doctor's band. Probably, during her lifetime, she allowed
him to go to some ordination or other grand clerical celebration
with rumpled linen; and ever since, and throughout all earthly
futurity (at least, as long as the house shall stand), she is
doomed to exercise a nightly toil with a spiritual flat-iron.
Poor sinner!--and doubtless Satan heats the irons for her. What
nonsense is all this! but, really, it does make me shiver to
think of that poor home of ours.

March
16th.--. . . As for this Mr. ----, I wish he would
not be so troublesome. His scheme is well enough, and might
possibly become popular; but it has no peculiar advantages with
reference to myself, nor do the subjects of his proposed books
particularly suit my fancy as themes to write upon. Somebody
else will answer his purpose just as well; and I would rather
write books of my own imagining than be hired to develop the
ideas of an engraver; especially as the pecuniary prospect is not
better, nor so good, as it might be elsewhere. I intend to
adhere to my former plan of writing one or two mythological
story-books, to be published under O'Sullivan's
auspices in New York,--which is the only place where books can be
published with a chance of profit. As a matter ofcourtesy, I may call on Mr. ----
if I have time; but I do not intend to be connected with this
affair.

Sunday,
April 9th.--. . . After finishing my record in
the journal, I sat a long time in grandmother's chair,
thinking of many things. . . . My spirits were at a lower ebb
than they ever descend to when I am not alone; nevertheless,
neither was I absolutely sad. Many times I wound and re-wound
Mr. Thoreau's little musical-box; but certainly its
peculiar sweetness had evaporated, and I am pretty sure that I
should throw it out of the window were I doomed to hear it long
and often. It has not an infinite soul. When it was almost as
dark as the moonlight would let it be, I lighted the lamp, and
went on with Tieck's tale, slowly and painfully, often
wishing for help in my difficulties. At last I determined to
learn a little about pronouns and verbs before proceeding
further, and so took up the phrasebook, with which I was
commendably busy, when, at about a quarter to nine, came a knock
at my study door, and, behold, there was Molly with a letter!
How she came by it I did not ask, being content to suppose it was
brought by a heavenly messenger. I had not expected a letter;
and what a comfort it was to me in my loneliness and sombreness!
I called Molly to take her note (enclosed), which she received
with a face of delight as broad and bright as the kitchen fire.
Then I read, and re-read, and re-re-read, and quadruply,
quintuply, and sextuply reread my epistle, until I had it all by
heart, and then continued to re-read it for the sake of the
penmanship. Then I took up the phrase-book again; but could not
study, and so bathed and retired, it being now not far from ten
o'clock. I lay awake a good deal in the night, but saw no
ghost.

I arose about
seven, and found that the upper part of my nose, and the region
round about, was grievously discolored; and at the angle of the
left eye there is a great spot of almost black purple, and a
broad streak of the same hue semicircling beneath either eye,
while green, yellow, and orange overspread the circumjacent
country. It looks not unlike a gorgeous sunset, throwing its
splendor over the heaven of my countenance. It will behoove me
to show myself as little as possible, else people will think I
have fought a pitched battle, . . . The Devil take the stick
of wood! What had I done, that it should bemaul me so? However,
there is no pain, though, I think, a very slight affection of the
eyes.

This forenoon I
began to write, and caught an idea by the skirts, which I intend
to hold fast, though it struggles to get free. As it was not
ready to be put upon paper, however, I took up the
"Dial," and finished reading the article on Mr.
Alcott. It is not very satisfactory, and it has not taught me
much. Then I read Margaret's article on Canova, which is
good. About this time the dinner-bell rang, and I went down
without much alacrity, though with a good appetite enough. . .
. It was in the angle of my right eye, not my left, that
the blackest purple was collected. But they both look like the
very Devil.

Half past five
o'clock.--After writing the above,
. . . I again set to work on Tieck's tale, and worried
through several pages; and then, at half past four, threw open
one of the western windows of my study, and sallied forth to take
the sunshine. I went down through the orchard to the river-side.
The orchard-path is still deeply covered with snow; and so is
thewhole visible
universe, except streaks upon the hill-sides, and spots in the
sunny hollows, where the brown earth peeps through. The river,
which a few days ago was entirely imprisoned, has now broken its
fetters; but a tract of ice extended across from near the foot of
the monument to the abutment of the old bridge, and looked so
solid that I supposed it would yet remain for a day or two.
Large cakes and masses of ice came floating down the current,
which, though not very violent, hurried along at a much swifter
pace than the ordinary one of our sluggish river-god. These
ice-masses, when they struck the barrier of ice above mentioned,
acted upon it like a battering-ram, and were themselves forced
high out of the water, or sometimes carried beneath the main
sheet of ice. At last, down the stream came an immense mass of
ice, and, striking the barrier about at its centre, it gave way,
and the whole was swept onward together, leaving the river
entirely free, with only here and there a cake of ice floating
quietly along. The great accumulation, in its downward course,
hit against a tree that stood in mid-current, and caused it to
quiver like a reed; and it swept quite over the shrubbery that
bordered what, in summer-time, is the river's bank, but
which is now nearly the centre of the stream. Our river in its
present state has quite a noble breadth. The little hillock
which formed the abutment of the old bridge is now an island with
its tuft of trees. Along the hither shore a row of trees stand
up to their knees, and the smaller ones to their middles, in the
water; and afar off, on
the surface of the stream, we see tufts of bushes emerging,
thrusting up their heads, as it were, to breathe. The water
comes over the stone-wall, and encroaches several yards on the
boundaries of ourorchard. [Here the supper-bell rang.] If our
boat were in good order, I should now set forth on voyages of
discovery, and visit nooks on the borders of the meadows, which
by and by will be a mile or two from the water's edge. But
she is in very bad condition, full of water, and, doubtless, as
leaky as a sieve.

On coming from
supper, I found that little Puss had established herself in the
study, probably with intent to pass the night here. She now lies
on the foot-stool between my feet, purring most obstreperously.
The day of my wife's departure, she came to me, talking with
the greatest earnestness; but whether it was to condole with me
on my loss, or to demand my redoubled care for herself, I could
not well make out. As Puss now constitutes a third part of the
family, this mention of her will not appear amiss. How Molly
employs herself, I know not. Once in a while, I hear a door slam
like a thunder-clap; but she never shows her face, nor speaks a
word, unless to announce a visitor or deliver a letter. This
day, on my part, will have been spent without exchanging a
syllable with any human being, unless something unforeseen should
yet call for the exercise of speech before bedtime.

Monday,
April 10th.--I sat till eight o'clock,
meditating upon this world and the next, . . . and sometimes
dimly shaping out scenes of a tale. Then betook myself to the
German phrase-book. Ah! these are but dreary evenings. The
lamp would not brighten my spirits, though it was duly filled, .
. . This forenoon was spent in scribbling, by no means to my
satisfaction, until past eleven, when I went to the village.
Nothing in our box at the post-office. I read during the
customary hour, or more, at theAthenæum, and returned without saying a
word to mortal. I gathered from some conversation that I heard,
that a son of Adam is to be buried this afternoon from the
meeting-house; but the name of the deceased escaped me. It is no
great matter, so it be but written in the Book of Life.

My variegated
face looks somewhat more human to-day; though I was unaffectedly
ashamed to meet anybody's gaze, and therefore turned my back
or my shoulder as much as possible upon the world. At dinner,
behold an immense joint of roast veal! I would willingly have
had some assistance in the discussion of this great piece of
calf. I am ashamed to eat alone; it becomes the mere
gratification of animal appetite,--the tribute which we are
compelled to pay to our grosser nature; whereas, in the company
of another it is refined and moralized and spiritualized; and
over our earthly victuals (or rather vittles, for the
former is a very foolish mode of spelling),--over our earthly
vittles is diffused a sauce of lofty and gentle thoughts, and
tough meat is mollified with tender feelings. But oh! these
solitary meals are the dismallest part of my present experience.
When the company rose from table, they all, in my single person,
ascended to the study, and employed themselves in reading the
article on Oregon in the "Democratic Review." Then they
plodded onward in the rugged and bewildering depths of
Tieck's tale until five o'clock, when, with one accord,
they went out to split wood. This has been a gray day, with now
and then a sprinkling of snow-flakes through the air. . . .
To-day no more than yesterday have I spoken a word to mortal. .
. . It is now sunset, and I must meditate till dark.

April
11th.--I meditated accordingly, but without any very
wonderful result. Then at eight o'clock bothered myself
till after nine with this eternal tale of Tieck. The forenoon
was spent in scribbling; but at eleven o'clock my thoughts
ceased to flow,--indeed, their current has been wofully
interrupted all along,--so I threw down my pen, and set out on
the daily journey to the village. Horrible walking! I wasted
the customary hour at the Athenæum, and returned home, if
home it may now be called. Till dinner-time I labored on
Tieck's tale, and resumed that agreeable employment after
the banquet.

Just when I was
on the point of choking with a huge German word, Molly announced
Mr. Thoreau. He wished to take a row in the boat, for the last
time, perhaps, before he leaves Concord. So we emptied the water
out of her, and set forth on our voyage. She leaks, but not more
than she did in the autumn. We rowed to the foot of the hill
which borders the North Branch, and there landed, and climbed the
moist and snowy hill-side for the sake of the prospect. Looking
down the river, it might well have been mistaken for an arm of
the sea, so broad is now its swollen tide; and I could have
fancied that, beyond one other headland, the mighty ocean would
outspread itself before the eye. On our return we boarded a
large cake of ice, which was floating down the river, and were
borne by it directly to our own landing-place, with the boat
towing behind.

Parting with Mr.
Thoreau, I spent half an hour in chopping wood, when Molly
informed me that Mr. Emerson wished to see me. He had brought a
letter of Ellery Channing, written in a style of very pleasant
humor. This being read and discussed, togetherwith a few other matters, he took
his leave, since which I have been attending to my journalizing
duty; and thus this record is brought down to the present
moment.

April
25th. Spring is advancing, sometimes with sunny days,
and sometimes, as is the case now, with chill, moist, sullen
ones. There is an influence in the season that makes it almost
impossible for me to bring my mind down to literary employment;
perhaps because several months' pretty constant work has
exhausted that species of energy,--perhaps because in spring it
is more natural to labor actively than to think. But my impulse
now is to be idle altogether,--to lie in the sun, or wander about
and look at the revival of Nature from her death-like slumber, or
to be borne down the current of the river in my boat. If I had
wings, I would gladly fly; yet would prefer to be wafted along by
a breeze, sometimes alighting on a patch of green grass, then
gently whirled away to a still sunnier spot. . . . Oh, how
blest should I be were there nothing to do! Then I would watch
every inch and hair's-breadth of the progress of the season;
and not a leaf should put itself forth, in the vicinity of our
old mansion, without my noting it. But now, with the burden of a
continual task upon me, I have not freedom of mind to make such
observations. I merely see what is going on in a very general
way. The snow, which, two or three weeks ago, covered hill and
valley, is now diminished to one or two solitary specks in the
visible landscape; though doubtless there are still heaps of it
in the shady places in the woods. There have been no violent
rains to carry it off: it has diminished gradually, inch by inch,
and day after day;and I observed, along the roadside, that the
green blades of grass had sometimes sprouted on the very edge of
the snowdrift the moment that the earth was uncovered.

The pastures and
grass-fields have not yet a general effect of green; nor have
they that cheerless brown tint which they wear in later autumn,
when vegetation has entirely ceased. There is now a suspicion of
verdure,--the faint shadow of it,--but not the warm reality.
Sometimes, in a happy exposure,--there is one such tract across
the river, the carefully cultivated mowing-field, in front of an
old red homestead,--such patches of land wear a beautiful and
tender green, which no other season will equal; because, let the
grass be green as it may hereafter, it will not be so set off by
surrounding barrenness. The trees in our orchard, and elsewhere,
have as yet no leaves; yet to the most careless eye they appear
full of life and vegetable blood. It seems as if, by one magic
touch, they might instantaneously put forth all their foliage,
and the wind, which now sighs through their naked branches, might
all at once find itself impeded by innumerable leaves. This
sudden development would be scarcely more wonderful than the
gleam of verdure which often brightens, in a moment, as it were,
along the slope of a bank or roadside. It is like a gleam of
sunlight. Just now it was brown, like the rest of the scenery:
look again, and there is an apparition of green grass. The
Spring, no doubt, comes onward with fleeter footsteps, because
Winter has lingered so long that, at best, she can hardly
retrieve half the allotted term of her reign.

The river, this
season, has encroached farther on the land than it has been known
to do for twentyyears past. It has formed along its course a
succession of lakes, with a current through the midst. My boat
has lain at the bottom of the orchard, in very convenient
proximity to the house. It has borne me over stone fences; and,
a few days ago, Ellery Channing and I passed through two rails
into the great northern road, along which we paddled for some
distance. The trees have a singular appearance in the midst of
waters. The curtailment of their trunks quite destroys the
proportions of the whole tree; and we become conscious of a
regularity and propriety in the forms of Nature, by the effect of
this abbreviation. The waters are now subsiding, but gradually.
Islands become annexed to the mainland, and other islands emerge
from the flood, and will soon, likewise, be connected with the
continent. We have seen on a small scale the process of the
deluge, and can now witness that of the reappearance of the
earth.

Crows visited us
long before the snow was off. They seem mostly to have departed
now, or else to have betaken themselves to remote depths of the
woods, which they haunt all summer long. Ducks came in great
numbers, and many sportsmen went in pursuit of them along the
river; but they also have disappeared. Gulls come up from
seaward, and soar high overhead, flapping their broad wings in
the upper sunshine. They are among the most picturesque birds
that I am acquainted with; indeed, quite the most so, because the
manner of their flight makes them almost stationary parts of the
landscape. The imagination has time to rest upon them; they have
not flitted away in a moment. You go up among the clouds, and
lay hold of these soaring gulls, and repose with them upon the
sustaining atmosphere. The smaller birds,--the birds that build their
nests in our trees, and sing for us at morning-red,--I will not
describe.. . But I must mention the great companies of
blackbirds--more than the famous "four-and-twenty" who
were baked in a pie--that congregate on the tops of contiguous
trees, and vociferate with all the clamor of a turbulent
political meeting. Politics must certainly be the subject of
such a tumultuous debate; but still there is a melody in each
individual utterance, and a harmony in the general effect. Mr.
Thoreau tells me that these noisy assemblages consist of three
different species of blackbirds; but I forget the other two.
Robins have been long among us, and swallows have more recently
arrived.

April
26th.--Here is another misty day, muffling the sun. The
lilac-shrubs under my study window are almost in leaf. In two or
three days more, I may put forth my hand and pluck a green bough.
These lilacs appear to be very aged, and have lost the luxuriant
foliage of their prime. Old age has a singular aspect in lilacs,
rose-bushes, and other ornamental shrubs. It seems as if such
things, as they grow only for beauty, ought to flourish in
immortal youth, or at least to die before their decrepitude.
They are trees of Paradise, and therefore not naturally subject
to decay; but have lost their birthright by being transplanted
hither. There is a kind of ludicrous unfitness in the idea of a
venerable rose-bush; and there is something analogous to this in
human life. Persons who can only be graceful and ornamental--who
can give the world nothing but flowers--should die young, and
never be seen with gray hairs and wrinkles, any more than the
flower-shrubs with mossy bark and scantyfoliage, like the lilacs under my
window. Not that beauty is not worthy of immortality. Nothing
else, indeed, is worthy of it; and thence, perhaps, the sense of
impropriety when we see it triumphed over by time. Apple-trees,
on the other hand, grow old without reproach. Let them live as
long as they may, and contort themselves in whatever fashion they
please, they are still respectable, even if they afford us only
an apple or two in a season, or none at all. Human
flower-shrubs, if they will grow old on earth, should, beside
their lovely blossoms, bear some kind of fruit that will satisfy
earthly appetites; else men will not be satisfied that the moss
should gather on them.

Winter and Spring
are now struggling for the mastery in my study; and I yield
somewhat to each, and wholly to neither. The window is open, and
there is a fire in the stove. The day when the window is first
thrown open should be an epoch in the year; but I have forgotten
to record it. Seventy or eighty springs have visited this old
house; and sixty of them found old Dr. Ripley here,--not always
old, it is true, but gradually getting wrinkles and gray hairs,
and looking more and more the picture of winter. But he was no
flower-shrub, but one of those fruit-trees or timber-trees that
acquire a grace with their old age. Last Spring found this house
solitary for the first time since it was built; and now again she
peeps into our open windows and finds new faces here. . .
.

It is remarkable
how much uncleanness winter brings with it, or leaves behind it,
. . . The yard, garden, and avenue, which should be my
department, require a great amount of labor. The avenue is
strewed with withered leaves,--the whole crop, apparently, of
last year,--some of which are now raked into heaps;and we intend to
make a bonfire of them. . . --There are quantities of decayed
branches, which one tempest after another has flung down, black
and rotten. In the garden are the old cabbages which we did not
think worth gathering last autumn, and the dry bean-vines, and
the withered stalks of the asparagus-bed; in short, all the
wrecks of the departed year,--its mouldering relics, its dry
bones. It is a pity that the world cannot be made over anew
every spring. Then, in the yard, there are the piles of
firewood, which I ought to have sawed and thrown into the shed
long since, but which will cumber the earth, I fear, till June,
at least. Quantities of chips are strewn about, and on removing
them we find the yellow stalks of grass sprouting underneath.
Nature does her best to beautify this disarray. The grass
springs up most industriously, especially in sheltered and sunny
angles of the buildings, or round the doorsteps,--a locality
which seems particularly favorable to its growth; for it is
already high enough to bend over and wave the wind. I was
surprised to observe that some weeds (especially a plant that
stains the fingers with its yellow juice) had lived, and retained
their freshness and sap as perfectly as in summer, through all
the frosts and snows of last winter. I saw them, the last green
thing, in the autumn; and here they are again, the first in the
spring.

Thursday,
April 27th.--I took a walk into the fields, and
round our opposite hill, yesterday noon, but made no very
remarkable observation. The frogs have begun their concerts,
though not as yet with a full choir. I found no violets nor
anemones, nor anything in the likeness of a flower, though I
looked carefullyalong the shelter of the stone-walls, and in
all spots apparently propitious. I ascended the hill, and had a
wide prospect of a swollen river, extending around me in a
semicircle of three or four miles, and rendering the view much
finer than in summer, had there only been foliage. It seemed
like the formation of a new world; for islands were everywhere
emerging, and capes extending forth into the flood; and these
tracts, which were thus won from the watery empire, were among
the greenest in the landscape. The moment the deluge leaves them
Nature asserts them to be her property by covering them with
verdure; or perhaps the grass had been growing under the water.
On the hill-top where I stood, the grass had scarcely begun to
sprout; and I observed that even those places which looked
greenest in the distance were but scantily grass-covered when I
actually reached them. It was hope that painted them so
bright.

Last evening we
saw a bright light on the river, betokening that a boat's
party were engaged in spearing fish. It looked like a descended
star,--like red Mars,--and, as the water was perfectly smooth,
its gleam was reflected downward into the depths. It is a very
picturesque sight. In the deep quiet of the night I suddenly
heard the light and lively note of a bird from a neighboring
tree,--a real song, such as those which greet the purple dawn, or
mingle with the yellow sunshine. What could the little bird mean
by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the note gushed out
from the midst of a dream, in which he fancied himself in
Paradise with his mate; and, suddenly awakening, he found he was
on a cold, leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating
through his feathers. That was a sad exchange of imaginationfor reality; but if
he found his mate beside him, all was well.

This is another
misty morning, ungenial in aspect, but kinder than it looks; for
it paints the hills and valleys with a richer brush than the
sunshine could. There is more verdure now than when I looked out
of the window an hour ago. The willow-tree opposite my study
window is ready to put forth its leaves. There are some
objections to willows. It is not a dry and cleanly tree; it
impresses me with an association of sliminess; and no trees, I
think, are perfectly satisfactory, which have not a firm and hard
texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the
earliest to put forth its leaves, and the last to scatter them on
the ground; and during the whole winter its yellow twigs give it
a sunny aspect, which is not without a cheering influence in a
proper point of view. Our old house would lose much were this
willow to be cut down, with its golden crown over the roof in
winter, and its heap of summer verdure. The present Mr. Ripley
planted it, fifty years ago, or thereabouts.

Friday,
June 2d.--Last night there came a frost, which has
done great damage to my garden. The beans have suffered very
much, although, luckily, not more than half that I planted have
come up. The squashes, both summer and winter, appear to be
almost killed. As to the other vegetables, there is little
mischief done,--the potatoes not being yet above ground, except
two or three; and the peas and corn are of a hardier nature. It
is sad that Nature will so sport with us poor mortals, inviting
us with sunny smiles to confide in her; and then, when we are
entirely in her power, striking us to the heart. Our summercommences at the
latter end of June, and terminates somewhere about the first of
August. There are certainly not more than six weeks of the whole
year when a frost may be deemed anything remarkable.

Friday,
June 23d.--Summer has come at last,--the longest
days, with blazing sunshine, and fervid heat. Yesterday glowed
like molten brass. Last night was the most uncomfortably and
unsleepably sultry that we have experienced since our residence
in Concord; and to-day it scorches again. I have a sort of
enjoyment in these seven-times-heated furnaces of midsummer, even
though they make me droop like a thirsty plant. The sunshine can
scarcely be too burning for my taste; but I am no enemy to summer
showers. Could I only have the freedom to be perfectly idle
now,--no duty to fulfil, no mental or physical labor to
perform,--I should be as happy as a squash, and much in the same
mode; but the necessity of keeping my brain at work eats into my
comfort, as the squash-bugs do into the heart of the vines. I
keep myself uneasy and produce little, and almost nothing that is
worth producing.

The garden looks
well now: the potatoes flourish; the early corn waves in the
wind; the squashes, both for summer and winter use, are more
forward, I suspect, than those of any of my neighbors. I am
forced, however, to carry on a continual warfare with the
squash-bugs, who, were I to let them alone for a day, would
perhaps quite destroy the prospects of the whole summer. It is
impossible not to feel angry with these unconscionable insects,
who scruple not to do such excessive mischief to me, with only
the profit of a meal or two to themselves. For their own sakes
they oughtat
least to wait till the squashes are better grown. Why is it, I
wonder, that Nature has provided such a host of enemies for every
useful esculent, while the weeds are suffered to grow unmolested,
and are provided with such tenacity of life, and such methods of
propagation, that the gardener must maintain a continual struggle
or they will hopelessly overwhelm him? What hidden virtue is in
these things, that it is granted them to sow themselves with the
wind, and to grapple the earth with this immitigable
stubbornness, and to flourish in spite of obstacles, and never to
suffer blight beneath any sun or shade, but always to mock their
enemies with the same wicked luxuriance? It is truly a mystery,
and also a symbol. There is a sort of sacredness about them.
Perhaps, if we could penetrate Nature's secrets, we should
find that what we call weeds are more essential to the well-being
of the world than the most precious fruit or grain. This may be
doubted, however, for there is an unmistakable analogy between
these wicked weeds and the bad habits and sinful propensities
which have overrun the moral world; and we may as well imagine
that there is good in one as in the other.

Our peas are in
such forwardness that I should not wonder if we had some of them
on the table within a week. The beans have come up ill, and I
planted a fresh supply only the day before yesterday. We have
watermelons in good advancement, and muskmelons also within three
or four days. I set out some tomatoes last night, also some
capers. It is my purpose to plant some more corn at the end of
the month, or sooner. There ought to be a record of the
flower-garden, and of the procession of the wild-flowers, as
minute, at least, as of the kitchen vegetables andpot-herbs. Above all, the noting
of the appearance of the first roses should not be omitted; nor
of the Arethusa, one of the delicatest, gracefullest, and in
every manner sweetest, of the whole race of flowers. For a
fortnight past I have found it in the swampy meadows, growing up
to its chin in heaps of wet moss. Its hue is a delicate pink, of
various depths of shade, and somewhat in the form of a Grecian
helmet. To describe it is a feat beyond my power. Also the
visit of two friends, who may fitly enough be mentioned among
flowers, ought to have been described. Mrs. F. S---- and Miss
A. S----. Also I have neglected to mention the birth of a little
white dove.

I never observed,
until the present season, how long and late the twilight lingers
in these longest days. The orange hue of the western horizon
remains till ten o'clock, at least, and how much later I am
unable to say. The night before last, I could distinguish
letters by this lingering gleam between nine and ten
o'clock. The dawn, I suppose, shows itself as early as two
o'clock, so that the absolute dominion of night has dwindled
to almost nothing. There seems to be also a diminished
necessity, or, at all events, a much less possibility, of sleep
than at other periods of the year. I get scarcely any sound
repose just now. It is summer, and not winter, that steals away
mortal life. Well, we get the value of what is taken from us.

Saturday,
July 1st.--We had our first dish of green peas (a
very small one) yesterday. Every day for the last week has been
tremendously hot; and our garden flourishes like Eden itself,
only Adam could hardly have been doomed to contend with such a
ferocious banditti of weeds.

Sunday,
July 9th.--I know not what to say, and yet cannot
be satisfied without marking with a word or two this anniversary,
.
. . But life now swells and heaves beneath me like a brim-full
ocean; and the endeavor to comprise any portion of it in words is
like trying to dip up the ocean in a goblet. . . . God bless
and keep us! for there is something more awful in happiness than
in sorrow,--the latter being earthly and finite, the former
composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that
spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.

July
18th.--This morning I gathered our first
summer-squashes. We should have had them some days earlier, but
for the loss of two of the vines, either by a disease of the
roots or by those infernal bugs. We have had turnips and carrots
several times. Currants are now ripe, and we are in the full
enjoyment of cherries, which turn out much more delectable than I
anticipated. George Hillard and Mrs. Hillard paid us a visit on
Saturday last. On Monday afternoon he left us, and Mrs. Hillard
still remains here.

Friday,
July 28th.--We had green corn for dinner yesterday,
and shall have some more to-day, not quite full grown, but
sufficiently so to be palatable. There has been no rain, except
one moderate shower, for many weeks; and the earth appears to be
wasting away in a slow fever. This weather, I think, affects the
spirits very unfavorably. There is an irksomeness, a
restlessness, a pervading dissatisfaction, together with an
absolute incapacity to bend the mind to any serious effort. With
me, as regards literary production, the summer has been
unprofitable; and Ionly hope that my forces are recruiting
themselves for the autumn and winter. For the future, I shall
endeavor to be so diligent nine months of the year that I may
allow myself a full and free vacation of the other three.

Monday,
July 31st.--We had our first cucumber yesterday.
There were symptoms of rain on Saturday, and the weather has
since been as moist as the thirstiest soul could desire.

Wednesday,
September 13th.--There was a frost the night before
last, according to George Prescott; but no effects of it were
visible in our garden. Last night, however, there was another,
which has nipped the leaves of the winter-squashes and cucumbers,
but seems to have done no other damage. This is a beautiful
morning, and promises to be one of those heavenly days that
render autumn, after all, the most delightful season of the year.
We mean to make a voyage on the river this afternoon.

Sunday,
September 23d.--I have gathered the two last of our
summer-squashes to-day. They have lasted ever since the 18th of
July, and have numbered fifty-eight edible ones, of excellent
quality. Last Wednesday, I think, I harvested our
winter-squashes, sixty-three in number, and mostly of fine size.
Our last series of green corn, planted about the 1st of July, was
good for eating two or three days ago. We still have beans; and
our tomatoes, though backward, supply us with a dish every day or
two. My potato-crop promises well; and, on the whole, my first
independent experiment of agriculture is quite a successful
one.

This is a
glorious day,--bright, very warm, yet with an unspeakable
gentleness both in its warmth and brightness. On such days it is
impossible not to love Nature, for she evidently loves us. At
other seasons she does not give me this impression, or only at
very rare intervals; but in these happy, autumnal days, when she
has perfected the harvests, and accomplished every necessary
thing that she had to do, she overflows with a blessed
superfluity of love. It is good to be alive now. Thank God for
breath,--yes, for mere breath! when it is made up of such a
heavenly breeze as this. It comes to the cheek with a real kiss;
it would linger fondly around us, if it might; but, since it must
be gone, it caresses us with its whole kindly heart, and passes
onward, to caress likewise the next thing that it meets. There
is a pervading blessing diffused over all the world. I look out
of the window and think, "O perfect day! O beautiful world!
O good God!" And such a day is the promise of a blissful
eternity. Our Creator would never have made such weather, and
given us the deep heart to enjoy it, above and beyond all
thought, if he had not meant us to be immortal. It opens the
gates of heaven and gives us glimpses far inward.

Bless me! this
flight has carried me a great way; so now let me come back to our
old abbey. Our orchard is fast ripening; and the apples and
great thumping pears strew the grass in such abundance that it
becomes almost a trouble--though a pleasant one--to gather them.
This happy breeze, too, shakes them down, as if it flung fruit to
us out of the sky; and often, when the air is perfectly still, I
hear the quiet fall of a great apple. Well, we are rich in
blessings, though poor in money. . . .

Friday,
October 6th.--Yesterday afternoon I took a solitary
walk to Walden Pond. It was a cool, windy day, with heavy clouds
rolling and tumbling about the sky, but still a prevalence of
genial autumn sunshine. The fields are still green, and the
great masses of the woods have not yet assumed their many-colored
garments; but here and there are solitary oaks of deep,
substantial red, or maples of a more brilliant hue, or chestnuts
either yellow or of a tenderer green than in summer. Some trees
seem to return to their hue of May or early June before they put
on the brighter autumnal tints. In some places, along the
borders of low and moist land, a whole range of trees were
clothed in the perfect gorgeousness of autumn, of all shades of
brilliant color, looking like the palette on which Nature was
arranging the tints wherewith to paint a picture. These hues
appeared to be thrown together without design; and yet there was
perfect harmony among them, and a softness and a delicacy made up
of a thousand different brightnesses. There is not, I think, so
much contrast among these colors as might at first appear. The
more you consider them, the more they seem to have one element
among them all, which is the reason that the most brilliant
display of them soothes the observer, instead of exciting him.
And I know not whether it be more a moral effect or a physical
one, operating merely on the eye; but it is a pensive gayety,
which causes a sigh often, and never a smile. We never fancy,
for instance, that these gayly clad trees might be changed into
young damsels in holiday attire, and betake themselves to dancing
on the plain. If they were to undergo such a transformation,
they would surely arrange themselves in funeral procession, and
go sadly along, with their purple andscarlet and golden garments trailing over the
withering grass. When the sunshine falls upon them, they seem to
smile; but it is as if they were heartbroken. But it is in vain
for me to attempt to describe these autumnal brilliancies, or to
convey the impression which they make on me. I have tried a
thousand times, and always without the slightest
self-satisfaction. Fortunately there is no need of such a
record, for Nature renews the picture year after year; and even
when we shall have passed away from the world, we can spiritually
create these scenes, so that we may dispense with all efforts to
put them into words.

Walden Pond was
clear and beautiful as usual. It tempted me to bathe; and,
though the water was thrillingly cold, it was like the thrill of
a happy death. Never was there such transparent water as this.
I threw sticks into it, and saw them float suspended on an almost
invisible medium. It seemed as if the pure air were beneath
them, as well as above. It is fit for baptisms; but one would
not wish it to be polluted by having sins washed into it. None
but angels should bathe in it; but blessed babies might be dipped
into its bosom.

In a small and
secluded dell that opens upon the most beautiful cove of the
whole lake, there is a little hamlet of huts or shanties
inhabited by the Irish people who are at work upon the railroad.
There are three or four of these habitations, the very rudest, I
should imagine, that civilized men ever made for
themselves,--constructed of rough boards, with the protruding
ends. Against some of them the earth is heaped up to the roof,
or nearly so; and when the grass has had time to sprout upon
them, they will look like small natural hillocks, or a species of
ant-hills,--somethingin which Nature has a larger share than man.
These huts are placed beneath the trees, oaks, walnuts, and
white-pines, wherever the trunks give them space to stand; and by
thus adapting themselves to natural interstices, instead of
making new ones, they do not break or disturb the solitude and
seclusion of the place. Voices are heard, and the shouts and
laughter of children, who play about like the sunbeams that come
down through the branches. Women are washing in open spaces, and
long lines of whitened clothes are extended from tree to tree,
fluttering and gambolling in the breeze. A pig, in a sty even
more extemporary than the shanties, is grunting and poking his
snout through the clefts of his habitation. The household pots
and kettles are seen at the doors; and a glance within shows the
rough benches that serve for chairs, and the bed upon the floor.
The visitor's nose takes note of the fragrance of a pipe.
And yet, with all these homely items, the repose and sanctity of
the old wood do not seem to be destroyed or profaned. It
overshadows these poor people, and assimilates them somehow or
other to the character of its natural inhabitants. Their
presence did not shock me any more than if I had merely
discovered a squirrel's nest in a tree. To be sure, it is a
torment to see the great, high, ugly embankment of the railroad,
which is here thrusting itself into the lake, or along its
margin, in close vicinity to this picturesque little hamlet. I
have seldom seen anything more beautiful than the cove on the
border of which the huts are situated; and the more I looked, the
lovelier it grew. The trees overshadowed it deeply; but on one
side there was some brilliant shrubbery which seemed to light up
the whole picture with the effect of a sweet and melancholy
smile.I felt as
if spirits were there,--or as if these shrubs had a spiritual
life. In short, the impression was indefinable; and, after
gazing and musing a good while, I retraced my steps through the
Irish hamlet, and plodded on along a wood-path.

According to my
invariable custom, I mistook my way, and, emerging upon the road,
I turned my back instead of my face towards Concord, and walked
on very diligently till a guide-board informed me of my mistake.
I then turned about, and was shortly overtaken by an old yeoman
in a chaise, who kindly offered me a drive, and soon set me down
in the village.

Salem,
April 14th, 1844.--. . . I went to George
Hillard's office, and he spoke with immitigable resolution
of the necessity of my going to dine with Longfellow before
returning to Concord; but I have an almost miraculous power of
escaping from necessities of this kind. Destiny itself has often
been worsted in the attempt to get me out to dinner. Possibly,
however, I may go. Afterwards, I called on Colonel Hall, who
held me long in talk about polities and other sweetmeats. Then I
stepped into a book auction, not to buy, but merely to observe,
and, after a few moments, who should come in, with a smile as
sweet as sugar (though savoring rather of molasses), but, to my
horror and petrifaction, ----! I anticipated a great deal of
bore and botheration; but, through Heaven's mercy, he merely
spoke a few words, and left me. This is so unlike his deportment
in times past, that I suspect "The Celestial Railroad"
must have given him a pique; and, if so, I shall feel as if
Providence had sufficiently rewarded me for that pious labor.

In the course of
the forenoon I encountered Mr. Howes in the street. He looked
most exceedingly depressed, and, pressing my hand with peculiar
emphasis, said that he was in great affliction, having just heard
of his son George's death in Cuba. He seemed encompassed
and overwhelmed by this misfortune, and walks the street as in a
heavy cloud of his own grief, forth from which he extended his
hand to meet my grasp. I expressed my sympathy, which I told him
I was now the more capable of feeling in a father's
suffering, as being myself the father of a little girl,--and,
indeed, the being a parent does give one the freedom of a wider
range of sorrow as well as of happiness. He again pressed my
hand, and left me. . . .

When I got to
Salem, there was great joy, as you may suppose.
. . . Mother hinted an apprehension that poor baby would be
spoilt, whereupon I irreverently observed that, having spoiled
her own three children, it was natural for her to suppose that
all other parents would do the same; when she averred that it was
impossible to spoil such children as E---- and I, because she had
never been able to do anything with us. . . . I could hardly
convince them that Una had begun to smile so soon. It surprised
my mother, though her own children appear to have been bright
specimens of babyhood. E---- could walk and talk at nine months
old. I do not understand that I was quite such a miracle of
precocity, but should think it not impossible, inasmuch as
precocious boys are said to make stupid men.

May
27th, 1844.--. . . My cook fills his office
admirably. He prepared what I must acknowledgeto be the best dish of fried fish
and potatoes for dinner to-day that I ever tasted in this house.
I scarcely recognized the fish of our own river. I make him get
all the dinners, while I confine myself to the much lighter task
of breakfast and tea. He also takes his turn in washing the
dishes.

We had a very
pleasant dinner at Longfellow's, and I liked Mrs.
Longfellow very much. The dinner was late and we sat long; so
that C---- and I did not get to Concord till half past nine
o'clock, and truly the old manse seemed somewhat dark and
desolate. The next morning George Prescott came with Una's
Lion, who greeted me very affectionately, but whined and moaned
as if he missed somebody who should have been here. I am not
quite so strict as I should be in keeping him out of the house;
but I commiserate him and myself, for are we not both of us
bereaved? C----, whom I can no more keep from smoking than I
could the kitchen chimney, has just come into the study with a
cigar, which might perfume this letter and make you think it came
from my own enormity, so I may as well stop here.

May
29th.--C---- is leaving me, to my unspeakable relief;
for he has had a bad cold, which caused him to be much more
troublesome and less amusing than might otherwise have been the
case.

May
31st.--. . . I get along admirably, and am at this
moment superintending the corned beef, which has been on the
fire, as it appears to me, ever since the beginning of time, and
shows no symptom of being done before the crack of doom. Mrs.
Hale says it must boil till it becomes tender; and so it shall,
if I can find wood to keep the fire a-going.

Meantime, I keep
my station in the dining-room, and read or write as composedly as
in my own study. Just now, there came a very important rap at
the front door, and I threw down a smoked herring which I had
begun to eat, as there is no hope of the corned beef to-day, and
went to admit the visitor. Who should it be but Ben B----, with
a very peculiar and mysterious grin upon his face! He put into
my hand a missive directed to "Mr. and Mrs.
Hawthorne." It contained a little bit of card, signifying
that Dr. L. F---- and Miss C. B---- receive their friends
Thursday eve, June 6. I am afraid I shall be too busy washing my
dishes to pay many visits. The washing of dishes does seem to me
the most absurd and unsatisfactory business that I ever
undertook. If, when once washed, they would remain clean forever
and ever (which they ought in all reason to do, considering how
much trouble it is), there would be less occasion to grumble; but
no sooner is it done, than it requires to be done again. On the
whole, I have come to the resolution not to use more than one
dish at each meal. However, I moralize deeply on this and other
matters, and have discovered that all the trouble and affliction
in the world come from the necessity of cleansing away our
earthly stains.

I ate the last
morsel of bread yesterday, and congratulate myself on being now
reduced to the fag-end of necessity. Nothing worse can happen,
according to ordinary modes of thinking, than to want bread; but
like most afflictions, it is more in prospect than reality. I
found one cracker in the tureen, and exulted over it as if it had
been so much gold. However, I have sent a petition to Mrs.
P---- stating my destitute condition, and imploring her succor;
and, till it arrive, Ishall keep myself alive on herrings and
apples, together with part of a pint of milk, which I share with
Leo. He is my great trouble now, though an excellent companion
too. But it is not easy to find food for him, unless I give him
what is fit for Christians,--though, for that matter, he appears
to be as good a Christian as most laymen, or even as some of the
clergy. I fried some pouts and eels yesterday, on purpose for
him, for he does not like raw fish. They were very good, but I
should hardly have taken the trouble on my own account.

George P---- has
just come to say that Mrs. P---- has no bread at present, and is
gone away this afternoon, but that she will send me some
to-morrow. I mean to have a regular supply from the same source.
. . . You cannot imagine how much the presence of Leo relieves
the feeling of perfect loneliness. He insists upon being in the
room with me all the time, except at night, when he sleeps in the
shed, and I do not find myself severe enough to drive him out.
He accompanies me likewise in all my walks to the village and
elsewhere; and, in short, keeps at my heels, all the time, except
when I go down cellar. Then he stands at the head of the stairs
and howls, as if he never expected to see me again. He is
evidently impressed with the present solitude of our old abbey,
both on his own account and mine, and feels that he may assume a
greater degree of intimacy than would be otherwise allowable. He
will be easily brought within the old regulations after your
return. P.S. 3 o'clock.--The beef is done!!!

Concord. The
Old Manse. June 2d.--. . . Everything goes on
well with me. At the time ofwriting my last letter, I was without bread.
Well, just at supper-time came Mrs. B---- with a large covered
dish, which proved to contain a quantity of specially good
flapjacks, piping hot, prepared, I suppose, by the fair hands of
Miss Martha or Miss Abby, for Mrs. P---- was not at home. They
served me both for supper and breakfast; and I thanked Providence
and the young ladies, and compared myself to the prophet fed by
ravens,--though the simile does rather more than justice to
myself, and not enough to the generous donors of the flapjacks.
The next morning, Mrs. P---- herself brought two big loaves of
bread, which will last me a week, unless I have some guests to
provide for. I have likewise found a hoard of crackers in one of
the covered dishes; so that the old castle is sufficiently
provisioned to stand a long siege. The corned beef is
exquisitely done, and as tender as a young lady's heart, all
owing to my skilful cookery; for I consulted Mrs. Hale at every
step, and precisely followed her directions. To say the truth, I
look upon it as such a masterpiece in its way, that it seems
irreverential to eat it. Things on which so much thought and
labor are bestowed should surely be immortal. . . . Leo and I
attended divine services this morning in a temple not made with
hands. We went to the farthest extremity of Peter's path,
and there lay together under an oak, on the verge of the broad
meadow.

Concord,
June 6th.--. . . Mr. F---- arrived yesterday,
and appeared to be in most excellent health, and as happy as the
sunshine. About the first thing he did was to wash the dishes;
and he is really indefatigable in the kitchen, so that I am quite
agentleman of
leisure. Previous to his arrival, I had kindled no fire for four
entire days, and had lived all that time on the corned beef,
except one day, when Ellery and I went down the river on a
fishing excursion. Yesterday, we boiled some lamb, which we
shall have cold for dinner to-day. This morning, Mr. F----
fried a sumptuous dish of eels for breakfast. Mrs. P. ----
continues to be the instrument of Providence, and yesterday sent
us a very nice plum-pudding.

I have told Mr.
F---- that I shall be engaged in the forenoons, and he is to
manage his own occupations and amusements during that time, . .
.

Leo, I regret to
say, has fallen under suspicion of a very great crime,--nothing
less than murder,--a fowl crime it may well be called, for it is
the slaughter of one of Mr. Hayward's hens. He has been
seen to chase the hens, several times, and the other day one of
them was found dead. Possibly he may be innocent, and, as there
is nothing but circumstantial evidence, it must be left with his
own conscience.

Meantime, Mr.
Hayward, or somebody else, seems to have given him such a
whipping that he is absolutely stiff, and walks about like a
rheumatic old gentleman. I am afraid, too, that he is an
incorrigible thief. Ellery says he has seen him coming up the
avenue with a calf's whole head in his mouth. How he came
by it is best known to Leo himself. If he were a dog of fair
character, it would be no more than charity to conclude that he
had either bought it, or had it given to him; but with the other
charges against him, it inclines me to great distrust of his
moral principles. Be that as it may, he managed his stock of
provisions very thriftily, burying it in the earth, and eating a
portion of it whenever he felt anappetite. If he insists upon living by
highway robbery, it would be well to make him share his booty
with us. . . .

June
10th.--. . . Mr. F---- is in perfect health, and
absolutely in the seventh heaven, and he talks and talks and
tails and talks; and I listen and listen and listen with a
patience for which, in spite of all my sins, I firmly expect to
be admitted to the mansions of the blessed. And there is really
a contentment in being able to make this poor, world-worn,
hopeless, half-crazy man so entirely comfortable as he seems to
be here. He is an admirable cook. We had some roast veal and a
baked rice-pudding on Sunday, really a fine dinner, and cooked in
better style than Mary can equal; and George Curtis came to dine
with us. Like all male cooks, he is rather expensive, and has a
tendency to the consumption of eggs in his various concoctions, .
. . I have had my dreams of splendor; but never expected to
arrive at the dignity of keeping a man-cook. At first we had
three meals a day, but now only two. . . .

We dined at Mr.
Emerson's the other day, in company with Mr. Hedge. Mr.
Bradford has been to see us two or three times,
. . . He looks thinner than ever.

May
5th, 1850.--I left Portsmouth last Wednesday, at the
quarter past twelve, by the Concord Rail-road, which at Newcastle
unites with the Boston and Maine Railroad about ten miles from
Portsmouth. The station at Newcastle is a small wooden
building,with one
railroad passing on one side, and another on another, and the two
crossing each other at right angles. At a little distance stands
a black, large, old, wooden church, with a square tower, and
broken windows, and a great rift though the middle of the roof,
all in a stage of dismal ruin and decay. A farm-house of the old
style, with a long sloping roof, and as black as the church,
stands on the opposite side of the road, with its barns; and
these are all the buildings in sight of the railroad station. On
the Concord rail is the train of cars, with the locomotive
puffing, and blowing off its steam, and making a great bluster in
that lonely place, while along the other railroad stretches the
desolate track, with the withered weeds growing up betwixt the
two lines of iron, all so desolate. And anon you hear a low
thunder running along these iron rails; it grows louder; an
object is seen afar off; it approaches rapidly, and comes down
upon you like fate, swift and inevitable. In a moment, it dashes
along in front of the station-house, and comes to a pause, the
locomotive hissing and fuming in its eagerness to go on. How
much life has come at once into this lonely place! Four or five
long cars, each, perhaps, with fifty people in it, reading
newspapers, reading pamphlet novels, chattering, sleeping; all
this vision of passing life! A moment passes, while the
luggage-men are putting on the trunks and packages; then the bell
strikes a few times, and away goes the train again, quickly out
of sight of those who remain behind, while a solitude of hours
again broods over the station-house, which, for an instant, has
thus been put in communication with far-off cities, and then
remains by itself, with the old, black, ruinous church, and the
black old farm-house, both built years and years ago,before railroads
were ever dreamed of. Meantime, the passenger, stepping from the
solitary station into the train, finds himself in the midst of a
new world all in a moment. He rushes out of the solitude into a
village; thence, though woods and hills, into a large inland
town; beside the Merrimack, which has overflowed its banks, and
eddies along, turbid as a vast mud-puddle, sometimes almost
laying the doorstep of a house, and with trees standing in the
flood half-way up their trunks. Boys, with newspapers to sell,
or apples and lozenges; many passengers departing and entering,
at each new station; the more permanent passenger, with his cheek
or ticket stuck in his hat-band, where the conductor may see it.
A party of girls, playing at ball with a young man. Altogether
it is a scene of stirring life, with which a person who had been
waiting long for the train to come might find it difficult at
once to amalgamate himself.

It is a sombre,
brooding day, and begins to rain as the cars pass onward. In a
little more than two hours we find ourselves in Boston surrounded
by eager hack-men.

Yesterday I went
to the Athenæum, and, being received with great courtesy by
Mr. Folsom, was shown all over the edifice from the very bottom
to the very top, whence I looked out over Boston. It is an
admirable point of view; but, it being an overcast and misty day,
I did not get the full advantage of it. The library is in a
noble hall, and looks splendidly with its vista of alcoves. The
most remarkable sight, however, was Mr. Hildreth, writing his
history of the United States. He sits at a table, at the
entrance of one of the alcoves, with his books and papers before
him, as quiet and absorbed as he would be in theloneliest study; now consulting
an authority; now penning a sentence or paragraph, without
seeming conscious of anything but his subject. It is very
curious thus to have a glimpse of a book in process of creation
under one's eye. I know not how many hours he sits there;
but while I saw him he was a pattern of diligence and unwandering
thought. He had taken himself out of the age, and put himself, I
suppose, into that about which he was writing. Being deaf, he
finds it much the easier to abstract himself. Nevertheless, it
is a miracle. He is a thin, middle-aged man, in black, with an
intelligent face, rather sensible than scholar-like.

Mr. Folsom
accompanied me to call upon Mr. Ticknor, the historian of
Spanish literature. He has a fine house, at the corner of Park
and Beacon Streets, perhaps the very best position in Boston. A
marble hall, a wide and easy staircase, a respectable old
man-servant, evidently long at home in the mansion, to admit us.
We entered the library, Mr. Folsom considerably in advance, as
being familiar with the house; and I heard Mr. Ticknor greet him
in friendly tones, their scholar-like and bibliographical
pursuits, I suppose, bringing them into frequent conjunction.
Then I was introduced, and received with great distinction, but
yet without any ostentatious flourish of courtesy. Mr. Ticknor
has a great head, and his hair is gray or grayish. You recognize
in him at once the man who knows the world, the scholar, too,
which probably is his more distinctive character, though a little
more under the surface. He was in his slippers; a volume of his
book was open on a table, and apparently he had been engaged in
revising or annotating it. His library is a stately and
beautiful room for a private dwelling,and itself looks large and rich. The
fireplace has a white marble frame about it, sculptured with
figures and reliefs. Over it hung a portrait of Sir Walter
Scott, a copy, I think, of the one that represents him in Melrose
Abbey.

Mr. Ticknor was
most kind in his alacrity to solve the point on which Mr.
Folsom, in my behalf, had consulted him (as to whether there had
been any English translation of the Tales of Cervantes); and most
liberal in his offers of books from his library. Certainly, he
is a fine example of a generous-principled scholar, anxious to
assist the human intellect in its efforts and researches.
Methinks he must have spent a happy life (as happiness goes among
mortals), writing his great three-volumed book for twenty years;
writing it, not for bread, nor with any uneasy desire of fame,
but only with a purpose to achieve something true and enduring.
He is, I apprehend, a man of great cultivation and refinement,
and with quite substance enough to be polished and refined,
without being worn too thin in the process,--a man of society.
He related a singular story of an attempt of his to become
acquainted with me years ago, when he mistook my kinsman Eben for
me.

At half past
four, I went to Mr. Thompson's, the artist who has
requested to paint my picture. This was the second sitting. The
portrait looked dimly out from the canvas, as from a cloud, with
something that I could recognize as my outline, but no strong
resemblance as yet. I have had thee portraits taken before
this,--an oil picture, a miniature, and a crayon sketch,--neither
of them satisfactory to those most familiar with my physiognomy.
In fact, there is no such thing as a true portrait; they are all
delusions, and Inever saw any two alike, nor hardly any two
that I would recognize merely by the portraits themselves, as
being of the same man. A bust has more reality. This artist is
a man of thought, and with no mean idea of his art; a
Swedenborgian, or, as he prefers to call it, a member of the New
Church; and I have generally found something marked in men who
adopt that faith. He had painted a good picture of Bryant. He
seems to me to possess truth in himself, and to aim at it in his
artistic endeavors.

May
6th.--This morning it is an easterly rain
(south-easterly, I should say just now at twelve o'clock),
and I went at nine, by appointment, to sit for my picture. The
artist painted awhile; but soon found that he had not so much
light as was desirable, and complained that his tints were as
muddy as the weather. Further sitting was therefore postponed
till to-morrow at eleven. It will be a good picture; but I see
no assurance, as yet, of the likeness. An artist's
apartment is always very interesting to me, with its pictures,
finished and unfinished; its little fancies in the pictorial
way,--as here two sketches of children among flowers and foliage,
representing Spring and Summer, Winter and Autumn being yet to
come out of the artist's mind; the portraits of his wife and
children; here a clergyman, there a poet; here a woman with the
stamp of reality upon her, there a feminine conception which we
feel not to have existed. There was an infant Christ, or rather
a child Christ, not unbeautiful, but scarcely divine. I love the
odor of paint in an artist's room; his palette and all his
other tools have a mysterious charm for me. The pursuit has
always interested my imagination more than anyother, and I remember, before
having my first portrait taken, there was a great bewitchery in
the idea, as if it were a magic process. Even now, it is not
without interest to me.

I left Mr.
Thompson before ten, and took my way though the sloppy streets to
the Athenæum, where I looked over the newspapers and
periodicals, and found two of my old stories ("Peter
Goldthwaite" and the "Shaker Bridal") published as
original in the last "London Metropolitan!" The English
are much more unscrupulous and dishonest pirates than ourselves.
However, if they are poor enough to perk themselves in such false
feathers as these, Heaven help them! I glanced over the stories,
and they seemed painfully cold and dull. It is the more singular
that these should be so published, inasmuch as the whole book was
republished in London, only a few months ago. Mr. Fields tells
me that two publishers in London had advertised the "Scarlet
Letter" as in press, each book at a shilling.

* * *

Certainly life is
made much more tolerable, and man respects himself far more, when
he takes his meals with a certain degree of order and state.
There should be a sacred law in these matters; and, as
consecrating the whole business, the preliminary prayer is a good
and real ordinance. The advance of man from a savage and animal
state may be as well measured by his mode and morality of dining,
as by any other circumstance. At Mr. Fields's, soon after
entering the house, I heard the brisk and cheerful notes of a
canary-bird, singing with great vivacity, and making its voice
echo through the large rooms. It was very pleasant at the close
of the rainy, east-windy day, and seemed to fling sunshine though
the dwelling.

May
7th.--I did not go out yesterday afternoon, but after
tea I went to Parker's. The drinking and smoking shop is no
bad place to see one kind of life. The front apartment is for
drinking. The door opens into Court Square, and is denoted,
usually, by some choice specimens of dainties exhibited in the
windows, or hanging beside the door-post; as, for instance, a
pair of canvas-back ducks, distinguishable by their delicately
mottled feathers; an admirable cut of raw beefsteak; a ham, ready
boiled, and with curious figures traced in spices on its outward
fat; a haif, or perchance the whole, of a large salmon, when in
season; a bunch of partridges, etc., etc. A screen stands
directly before the door, so as to conceal the interior from an
outside barbarian. At the counter stand, at almost all
hours,--certainly at all hours when I have chanced to
observe,--tipplers, either taking a solitary glass, or treating
all round, veteran topers, flashy young men, visitors from the
country, the various petty officers connected with the law, whom
the vicinity of the Court-House brings hither. Chiefly, they
drink plain liquors, gin, brandy, or whiskey, sometimes a Tom and
Jerry, a gin cocktail (which the bar-tender makes artistically,
tossing it in a large parabola from one tumbler to another, until
fit for drinking), a brandy-smash, and numerous other
concoctions. All this toping goes forward with little or no
apparent exhilaration of spirits; nor does this seem to be the
object sought,--it being rather, I imagine, to create a
titillation of the coats of the stomach and a general sense of
invigoration, without affecting the brain. Very seldom does a
man grow wild and unruly.

The inner room is
hung round with pictures and engravings of various kinds,--a
painting of apremium ox, a lithograph of a Turk and of a
Turkish lady, . . . and various showily engraved tailors'
advertisements, and other shop-bills; among them all, a small
painting of a drunken toper, sleeping on a bench beside the
grog-shop,--a ragged, half-hatless, bloated, red-nosed, jolly,
miserable-looking devil, very well done, and strangely suitable
to the room in which it hangs. Round the walls are placed some
half a dozen marble-topped tables, and a centre-table in the
midst; most of them strewn with theatrical and other show-bills;
and the large theatre-bills, with their type of gigantic solidity
and blackness, hung against the walls.

Last evening,
when I entered, there was one guest somewhat overcome with
liquor, and slumbering with his chair tipped against one of the
marble tables. In the course of a quarter of an hour, he roused
himself (a plain, middle-aged man), and went out with rather an
unsteady step, and a hot, red face. One or two others were
smoking, and looking over the papers, or glancing at a play-bill.
From the centre of the ceiling descended a branch with two
gas-burners, which sufficiently illuminated every corner of the
room. Nothing is so remarkable in these bar-rooms and
drinking-places, as the perfect order that prevails: if a man
gets drunk, it is no otherwise perceptible than by his going to
sleep, or his inability to walk.

Pacing the
sidewalk in front of this grog-shop of Parker's (or
sometimes, on cold and rainy days, taking his station inside),
there is generally to be observed an elderly ragamuffin, in a
dingy and battered hat, an old surtout, and a more than shabby
general aspect; a thin face and red nose, a patch over one eye,
and the other half drowned in moisture. He leans in a slightly
stooping posture on a stick, forlornand silent, addressing nobody, but fixing his
one moist eye on you with a certain intentness. He is a man who
has been in decent circumstances at some former period of his
life, but, falling into decay (perhaps by dint of too frequent
visits at Parker's bar), he now haunts about the place, as a
ghost haunts the spot where he was murdered, "to collect his
rents," as Parker says,--that is, to catch an occasional
nine-pence from some charitable acquaintances, or a glass of
liquor at the bar. The word "ragamuffin," which I have
used above, does not accurately express the man, because there is
a sort of shadow or delusion of respectability about him, and a
sobriety too, and a kind of decency in his groggy and red-nosed
destitution.

Underground,
beneath the drinking and smoking rooms, is Parker's
eating-hall, extending all the way to Court Street. All sorts of
good eating may be had there, and a gourmand may feast at what
expense he will.

I take an
interest in all the nooks and crannies and every development of
cities; so here I try to make a description of the view from the
back windows of a house in the centre of Boston, at which I now
glance in the intervals of writing. The view is bounded, at
perhaps thirty yards' distance, by a row of opposite brick
dwellings, standing, I think, on Temple Place; houses of the
better order, with tokens of genteel families visible in all the
rooms betwixt the basements and the attic windows in the roof;
plate-glass in the rear drawing-rooms, flower-pots in some of the
windows of the upper stories. Occasionally, a lady's
figure, either seated or appearing with a flitting grace,or dimly manifest
farther within the obscurity of the room. A balcony, with a
wrought-iron fence running along under the row of drawing-room
windows, above the basement. In the space betwixt the opposite
row of dwellings and that in which I am situated are the low
out-houses of the above-described houses, with flat roofs; or
solid brick walls, with walks on them, and high railings, for the
convenience of the washerwomen in hanging out their clothes. In
the intervals are grass-plots, already green, because so
sheltered; and fruit-trees, now beginning to put forth their
leaves, and one of them, a cherry-tree, almost in full blossom.
Birds flutter and sing among these trees. I should judge it a
good site for the growth of delicate fruit; for, quite enclosed
on all sides by houses, the blighting winds cannot molest the
trees. They have sunshine on them a good part of the day, though
the shadow must come early, and I suppose there is a rich soil
about the roots. I see grapevines clambering against one wall,
and also peeping over another, where the main body of the vine is
invisible to me. In another place, a frame is erected for a
grapevine, and probably it will produce as rich clusters as the
vines of Madeira here in the heart of the city, in this little
spot of fructifying earth, while the thunder of wheels rolls
about it on every side. The trees are not all fruit-trees. One
pretty well-grown buttonwood-tree aspires upward above the roofs
of the houses. In the full verdure of summer, there will be
quite a mass or curtain of foliage between the hither and the
thither row of houses.

Afternoon.--At
eleven, I went to give Mr. Thompson a sitting for my picture. I
like the painter. He seems to reverence his art, and to aim at
truth in it,as I
said before; a man of gentle disposition too, and simplicity of
life and character. I seated myself in the pictorial chair, with
the only light in the room descending upon me from a high
opening, almost at the ceiling, the rest of the sole window being
shuttered. He began to work, and we talked in an idle and
desultory way,--neither of us feeling very conversable,--which he
attributed to the atmosphere, it being a bright, westwindy,
bracing day. We talked about the pictures of Christ, and how
inadequate and untrue they are. He said he thought artists
should attempt only to paint child-Christs, human powers being
inadequate to the task of painting such purity and holiness in a
manly development. Then he said that an idea of a picture had
occurred to him that morning while reading a chapter in the New
Testament,--how "they parted his garments among them, and
for his vesture did cast lots." His picture was to represent
the soldier to whom the garment without a seam had fallen, after
taking it home and examining it, and becoming impressed with a
sense of the former wearer's holiness. I do not quite see
how he would make such a picture tell its own story;--but I find
the idea suggestive to my own mind, and I think I could make
something of it. We talked of physiognomy and impressions of
character,--first impressions,--and how apt they are to come
aright in the face of the closest subsequent observation.

There were
several visitors in the course of the sitting, one a gentleman, a
connection from the country, with whom the artist talked about
family matters and personal affairs,--observing on the poorness
of his own business, and that he had thoughts of returning to New
York. I wish he would meet with bettersuccess. Two or three ladies
also looked in. Meanwhile Mr. Thompson had been painting with
more and more eagerness, casting quick, keen glances at me, and
then making hasty touches on the picture, as if to secure with
his brush what he had caught with his eye. He observed that he
was just getting interested in the work, and I could recognize
the feeling that was in him as akin to what I have experienced
myself in the glow of composition. Nevertheless, he seemed able
to talk about foreign matters, through it all. He continued to
paint in this rapid way, up to the moment of closing the sitting;
when he took the canvas from the easel, without giving me time to
mark what progress he had made, as he did the last time.

The artist is
middle-sized, thin, a little stooping, with a quick, nervous
movement. He has black hair, not thick, a beard under his chin,
a small head, but well-developed forehead, black eyebrows, eyes
keen, but kindly, and a dark face, not indicating robust health,
but agreeable in its expression. His voice is gentle and sweet,
and such as comes out from amidst refined feelings. He dresses
very simply and unpictorially in a gray frock or sack, and does
not seem to think of making a picture of himself in his own
person.

At dinner to-day
there was a young Frenchman, whom ---- befriended a year or so
ago, when he had not another friend in America, and obtained
employment for him in a large dry-goods establishment. He is a
young man of eighteen or thereabouts, with smooth black hair,
neatly dressed; his face showing a good disposition, but with
nothing of intellect or character. It is funny to think of this
poor little Frenchman, a Parisian too, eating our most un-French
victuals,--our beefsteaks, and roasts, and various homelypuddings, and hams,
and all things most incongruent to his hereditary stomach; but
nevertheless he eats most cheerfully and uncomplainingly. He has
not a large measure of French vivacity, never rattles, never
dances, nor breaks into ebullitions of mirth and song; on the
contrary, I have never known a youth of his age more orderly and
decorous. He is kind-hearted and grateful, and evinces his
gratitude to the mother of the family and to his benefactress by
occasional presents, not trifling when measured by his small
emolument of five dollars per week. Just at this time he is
confined to his room by indisposition, caused, it is suspected,
by a spree on Sunday last. Our gross Saxon orgies would soon be
the ruin of his French constitution.

A thought to-day.
Great men need to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole
world, in order to conceive their great ideas or perform their
great deeds. That is, there must be an atmosphere of greatness
round about them. A hero cannot be a hero unless in an heroic
world.

May
8th.--I went last evening to the National Theatre to see
a pantomime. It was Jack the Giant-Killer, and somewhat heavy
and tedious. The audience was more noteworthy than the play.
The theatre itself is for the middling and lower classes, and I
had not taken my seat in the most aristocratic part of the house;
so that I found myself surrounded chiefly by young sailors,
Hanover Street shopmen, mechanics, and other people of that
class. It is wonderful! the difference that exists in the
personal aspect and dress, and no less in the manners, of people
in this quarter of the city, as compared with other parts of
it.

One would think
that Oak Hall should give a common garb and air to the great mass
of the Boston population; but it seems not to be so; and perhaps
what is most singular is, that the natural make of the men has a
conformity and suitableness to the dress. Glazed caps and Palo
Alto hats were much worn. It is a pity that this picturesque and
comparatively graceful hat should not have been generally
adopted, instead of falling to the exclusive use of a rowdy
class. In the next box to me were two young women, with an
infant, but to which of them appertaining I could not at first
discover. One was a large, plump girl, with a heavy face, a snub
nose, coarse-looking, but good-natured, and with no traits of
evil,--save, indeed, that she had on the vilest gown of dirty
white cotton, so pervadingly dingy that it was white no longer,
as it seemed to me. The sleeves were short, and ragged at the
borders, and her shawl, which she took off on account of the
heat, was old and faded,--the shabbiest and dirtiest dress that I
ever saw a woman wear. Yet she was plump, and looked comfortable
in body and mind. I imagine that she must have had a better
dress at home, but had come to the theatre extemporaneously, and,
not going to the dress circle, considered her ordinary gown good
enough for the occasion. The other girl seemed as young or
younger than herself. She was small, with a particularly
intelligent and pleasant face, not handsome, perhaps, but as good
or better than if it were. It was mobile with whatever sentiment
chanced to be in her mind, as quick and vivacious a face in its
movements as I have ever seen; cheerful, too, and indicative of a
sunny, though I should think it might be a hasty, temper. She
was dressed in a dark gown (chintz, Isuppose, the women call it), a good, homely
dress, proper enough for the fireside, but a strange one to
appear in at a theatre. Both these girls appeared to enjoy
themselves very much,--the large and heavy one in her own duller
mode; the smaller manifesting her interest by gestures, pointing
at the stage, and with so vivid a talk of countenance that it was
precisely as if she had spoken. She was not a brunette, and this
made the vivacity of her expression the more agreeable. Her
companion, on the other hand, was so dark, that I rather
suspected her to have a tinge of African blood. There were two
men who seemed to have some connection with these girls,--one an
elderly, gray-headed personage, well-stricken in liquor, talking
loudly and foolishly, but good-humoredly; the other a young man,
sober, and doing his best to keep his elder friend quiet. The
girls seemed to give themselves no uneasiness about the matter.
Both the men wore Palo Alto hats. I could not make out whether
either of the men were the father of the child, though I was
inclined to set it down as a family party.

As the play went
on, the house became crowded and oppressively warm, and the poor
little baby grew dark red, or purple almost, with the
uncomfortable heat in its small body. It must have been
accustomed to discomfort, and have concluded it to be the
condition of mortal life, else it never would have remained so
quiet. Perhaps it had been quieted with a sleeping-potion. The
two young women were not negligent of it; but passed it to and
fro between them, each willingly putting herself to inconvenience
for the sake of tending it. But I really feared it might die in
some kind of a fit, so hot was the theatre, so purple with heat,
yet strangely quiet, was the child. I wasglad to hear it cry at last; but
it did not cry with any great rage and vigor, as it should, but
in a stupid kind of way. Hereupon the smaller of the two girls,
after a little inefficacious dandling, at once settled the
question of maternity by nursing her baby. Children must be hard
to kill, however injudicious the treatment. The two girls and
their cavaliers remained till nearly the close of the play. I
should like well to know who they are,--of what condition in
life, and whether reputable as members of the class to which they
belong. My own judgment is that they are so. Throughout the
evening, drunken young sailors kept stumbling into and out of the
boxes, calling to one another from different parts of the house,
shouting to the performers, and singing the burden of songs. It
was a scene of life in the rough.

May
14th.--A stable opposite the house,--an old wooden
construction, low, in three distinct parts; the centre being the
stable proper, where the horses are kept, and with a chamber over
it for the hay. On one side is the department for chaises and
carriages; on the other, the little office where the books are
kept. In the interior region of the stable everything is dim and
undefined,--half-traceable outlines of stalls, sometimes the
shadowy aspect of a horse. Generally a groom is dressing a horse
at the stable door, with a care and accuracy that leave no part
of the animal unvisited by the currycomb and brush; the horse,
meanwhile, evidently enjoying it, but sometimes, when the more
sensitive parts are touched, giving a half-playful kick with his
hind legs, and a little neigh. If the men bestowed half as much
care on their own personal cleanliness, they would be all the
better andhealthier men therefor. They appear to be
busy men, these stablers, yet have a lounging way with them, as
if indolence were somehow diffused through their natures. The
apparent head of the establishment is a sensible,
thoughtful-looking, large-featured, and homely man, past the
middle age, clad rather shabbily in gray, stooping somewhat, and
without any smartness about him. There is a groom, who seems to
be a very comfortable kind of personage,--a man of forty-five or
thereabouts (R. W. Emerson says he was one of his schoolmates),
but not looking so old; corpulent, not to say fat, with a white
frock, which his goodly bulk almost fills, enveloping him from
neck nearly to ankles. On his head he wears a cloth cap of a
jockey shape; his pantaloons are turned up an inch or two at
bottom, and he wears brogans on his feet. His hair, as may be
seen when he takes off his cap to wipe his brow, is black and in
perfect preservation, with not exactly a curl, yet a vivacious
and elastic kind of twist in it. His face is fresh-colored,
comfortable, sufficiently vivid in expression, not at all dimmed
by his fleshly exuberance, because the man possesses vigor enough
to carry it off. His bodily health seems perfect; so, indeed,
does his moral and intellectual. He is very active and assiduous
in his duties, currycombing and rubbing down the horses with
alacrity and skill; and, when not otherwise occupied, you may see
him talking jovially with chance acquaintances, or observing what
is going forward in the street. If a female acquaintance happens
to pass, he touches his jockey cap, and bows, accomplishing this
courtesy with a certain smartness that proves him a man of the
world. Whether it be his greater readiness to talk, or the
wisdom of what he says, he seems usually to bethe centre talker of the group.
It is very pleasant to see such an image of earthly comfort as
this. A fat man who feels his flesh as a disease and
encumbrance, and on whom it presses so as to make him melancholy
with dread of apoplexy, and who moves heavily under the burden of
himself,--such a man is a doleful and disagreeable object. But
if he have vivacity enough to pervade all his earthiness, and
bodily force enough to move lightly under it, and if it be not
too unmeasured to have a trimness and briskness in it, then it is
good and wholesome to look at him.

In the background
of the house, a cat, occasionally stealing along on the roofs of
the low out-houses; descending a flight of wooden steps into the
brick area; investigating the shed, and entering all dark and
secret places; cautious, circumspect, as if in search of
something; noiseless, attentive to every noise. Moss grows on
spots of the roof; there are little boxes of earth here and
there, with plants in them. The grass-plots appertaining to each
of the houses whose rears are opposite ours (standing in Temple
Place) are perhaps ten or twelve feet broad, and three times as
long. Here and there is a large, painted garden-pot, half buried
in earth. Besides the large trees in blossom, there are little
ones, probably of last year's setting out. Early in the day
chambermaids are seen hanging the bedclothes out of the upper
windows; at the window of the basement of the same house, I see a
woman ironing. Were I a solitary prisoner, I should not doubt to
find occupation of deep interest for my whole day in watching
only one of the houses. One house seems to be quite shut up; all
the blinds in the three windows of each of the four stories being
closed, although in the roof-windows of the attic story thecurtains are hung
carelessly upward, instead of being drawn. I think the house is
empty, perhaps for the summer. The visible side of the whole row
of houses is now in the shade,--they looking towards, I should
say, the southwest. Later in the day, they are wholly covered
with sunshine, and continue so through the afternoon; and at
evening the sunshine slowly withdraws upward, gleams aslant upon
the windows, perches on the chimneys, and so disappears. The
upper part of the spire and the weathercock of the Park Street
Church appear over one of the houses, looking as if it were close
behind. It shows the wind to be east now. At one of the windows
of the third story sits a woman in a colored dress, diligently
sewing on something white. She sews, not like a lady, but with
an occupational air. Her dress, I observe, on closer
observation, is a kind of loose morning sack, with, I think, a
silky gloss on it; and she seems to have a silver comb in her
hair,--no, this latter item is a mistake. Sheltered as the space
is between the two rows of houses, a puff of the eastwind finds
its way in, and shakes off some of the withering blossoms from
the cherry-trees.

Quiet as the
prospect is, there is a continual and near thunder of wheels
proceeding from Washington Street. In a building not far off,
there is a hall for exhibitions; and sometimes, in the evenings,
loud music is heard from it; or, if a diorama be shown (that of
Bunker Hill, for instance, or the burning of Moscow), an immense
racket of imitative cannon and musketry.

May
16th.--It has been an easterly rain yesterday and
to-day, with occasional lightings up, and then a heavy downfall
of the gloom again.

Scenes out of the
rear windows,--the glistening roof of the opposite houses; the
chimneys, now and then choked with their own smoke, which a blast
drives down their throats. The church-spire has a mist about it.
Once this morning a solitary dove came and alighted on the peak
of an attic window, and looked down into the areas, remaining in
this position a considerable time. Now it has taken a flight,
and alighted on the roof of this house, directly over the window
at which I sit, so that I can look up and see its head and beak,
and the tips of its claws. The roofs of the low out-houses are
black with moisture; the gutters are full of water, and there is
a little puddle where there is a place for it in the hollow of a
board. On the grass-plot are strewn the fallen blossoms of the
cherry-tree, and over the scene broods a parallelogram of sombre
sky. Thus it will be all day as it was yesterday; and, in the
evening, one window after another will be lighted up in the
drawing-rooms. Through the white curtains may be seen the gleam
of an astral-lamp, like a fixed star. In the basement rooms, the
work of the kitchen going forward; in the upper chambers, here
and there a light.

In a bar-room, a
large, oval basin let into the counter, with a brass tube rising
from the centre, out of which gushes continually a miniature
fountain, and descends in a soft, gentle, never-ceasing rain into
the basin, where swim a company of gold-fishes. Some of them
gleam brightly in their golden armor; others have a dull white
aspect, going through some process of transformation. One would
think that the atmosphere, continually filled with tobacco-smoke,
might impregnate the water unpleasantly for the scaly people; but
then it is continually flowing away and beingrenewed. And what if some toper
should be seized with the freak of emptying his glass of gin or
brandy into the basin,--would the fishes die or merely get
jolly?

I saw, for a
wonder, a man pretty drunk at Parker's the other evening,--a
well-dressed man, of not ungentlemanly aspect. He talked loudly
and foolishly, but in good phrases, with a great flow of
language, and he was no otherwise impertinent than in addressing
his talk to strangers. Finally, after sitting a long time
staring steadfastly across the room in silence, he arose, and
staggered away as best he might, only showing his very drunken
state when he attempted to walk.

Old
acquaintances,--a gentleman whom I knew ten years ago, brisk,
active, vigorous, with a kind of fire of physical well-being and
cheerful spirits glowing through him. Now, after a course, I
presume, of rather free living, pale, thin, oldish, with a grave
and care or pain worn brow,--yet still lively and cheerful in his
accost, though with something invincibly saddened in his tones.
Another, formerly commander of a revenue vessel,--a man of
splendid epaulets and very aristocratic equipment and demeanor;
now out of service and without position, and changed into a
brandy-burnt and rowdyish sort of personage. He seemed as if he
might still be a gentleman if he would; but his manners show a
desperate state of mind by their familiarity, recklessness, the
lack of any hedge of reserve about himself, while still he is
evidently a man of the world, accustomed to good society. He has
latterly, I think, been in the Russian service, and would very
probably turn pirate on fair occasion.

Lenox,July 14th.--The tops of the chestnut-trees have
a whitish appearance, they being, I suppose, in bloom. Red
raspberries are just through the season.

Language,--human
language,--after all, is but little better than the croak and
cackle of fowls and other utterances of brute nature,--sometimes
not so adequate.

July
16th.--The tops of the chestnut-trees are peculiarly
rich, as if a more luscious sunshine were falling on them than
anywhere else. "Whitish," as above, don't express
it.

The queer
gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to deposit
her egg; her self-important gait; the sideway turn of her head
and cock of her eye, as she pries into one and another nook,
croaking all the while,--evidently with the idea that the egg in
question is the most important thing that has been brought to
pass since the world began. A speckled black and white and
tufted hen of ours does it to most ludicrous perfection; and
there is something laughably womanish in it too.

July
25th.--As I sit in my study, with the windows open, the
occasional incident of the visit of some winged creature,--wasp,
hornet, or bee,--entering out of the warm, sunny atmosphere,
soaring round the room in large sweeps, then buzzing against the
glass, as not satisfied with the place, and desirous of getting
out. Finally, the joyous uprising curve with which, coming to
the open part of the window, it emerges into the cheerful glow of
the outside.

August
4th.--Dined at hotel with J. T. Fields and wife.
Afternoon, drove with them to Pittsfield and called on Dr.
Holmes.

August
5th.--Drove with Fields and his wife to Stockbridge,
being thereto invited by Mr. Field of Stockbridge, in order to
ascend Monument Mountain. Found at Mr. Field's Dr. Holmes
and Mr. Duyckinck of New York; also Mr. Cornelius Matthews and
Herman Melville. Ascended the mountain: that is to say, Mrs.
Fields and Miss Jenny Field, Mr. Field and Mr. Fields, Dr.
Holmes, Messrs. Duyckinck, Matthews, Melville, Mr. Henry
Sedgewick, and I, and were caught in a shower. Dined at Mr.
Field's. Afternoon, under guidance of J. T. Headley, the
party scrambled though the ice-glen.

August
7th.--Messrs. Duyckinck, Matthews, Melville, and
Melville, Junior, called in the forenoon. Gave them a couple of
bottles of Mr. Mansfield's champagne, and walked down to
the lake with them. At twilight Mr. Edwin P. Whipple and wife
called.

August
19th.--Monument Mountain, in the early sunshine; its
base enveloped in mist, parts of which are floating in the sky,
so that the great hill looks really as if it were founded on a
cloud. Just emerging from the mist is seen a yellow field of
rye, and, above that, forest.

August
21st.--Eight more chickens hatched. Ascended a mountain
with my wife; a beautiful, mellow, autumnal sunshine.

August
24th.--In the afternoons, nowadays, this valley in which
I dwell seems like a vast basin filled with golden sunshine as
with wine.

September 1st.--Mr. and Mrs.
Lowell called in the forenoon, on their way to Stockbridge or
Lebanon, to meet Miss Bremer.

September 2d.--"When I grow
up," quoth J----, in illustration of the might to which he
means to attain,--"when I grow up, I shall be two
men."

September 3d.--Foliage of maples
begins to change. Julian, after picking up a handful of autumnal
maple-leaves the other day,--"Look, papa, here's a
bunch of fire!"

September 7th.--In a wood, a
heap or pile of logs and sticks, that had been cut for firewood,
and piled up square, in order to be carted away to the house when
convenience served,--or, rather, to be sledded in sleighing time.
But the moss had accumulated on them, and leaves falling over
them from year to year and decaying, a kind of soil had quite
covered them, although the softened outline of the woodpile was
perceptible in the green mound. It was perhaps fifty
years--perhaps more--since the woodman had cut and piled those
logs and sticks, intending them for hiswinter fires. But he probably
needs no fire now. There was something strangely interesting in
this simple circumstance. Imagine the long-dead woodman, and his
long-dead wife and family, and the old man who was a little child
when the wood was cut, coming back from their graves, and trying
to make a fire with this mossy fuel.

September 19th.--Lying by the
lake yesterday afternoon, with my eyes shut, while the waves and
sunshine were playing together on the water, the quick glimmer of
the wavelets was perceptible through my closed eyelids.

October
13th.--A windy day, with wind north-west, cool, with a
prevalence of dull gray clouds over the sky, but with brief,
quick glimpses of sunshine,

The foliage
having its autumn hues, Monument Mountain looks like a headless
sphinx, wrapped in a rich Persian shawl. Yesterday, through a
diffused mist, with the sun shining on it, it had the aspect of
burnished copper. The sun-gleams on the hills are peculiarly
magnificent just in these days.

One of the
children, drawing a cow on the black-board, says, "I'll
kick this leg out a little more,"--a very happy energy of
expression, completely identifying herself with the cow; or
perhaps, as the cow's creator, conscious of full power over
its movements.

October
14th.--The brilliancy of the foliage has passed its
acme; and indeed it has not been so magnificent this season as in
some others, owing to the gradual approaches of cooler weather,
and therehaving
been slight frosts instead of severe ones. There is still a
shaggy richness on the hill-sides.

October
16th.--A morning mist, filling up the whole length and
breadth of the valley betwixt my house and Monument Mountain, the
summit of the mountain emerging. The mist reaches almost to my
window, so dense as to conceal everything, except that near its
hither boundary a few ruddy or yellow tree-tops appear, glorified
by the early sunshine, as is likewise the whole mist-cloud.

There is a glen
between this house and the lake, through which winds a little
brook with pools and tiny waterfalls over the great roots of
trees. The glen is deep and narrow, and filled with trees; so
that, in the summer, it is all a dense shadow of obscurity. Now,
the foliage of the trees being almost entirely a golden yellow,
instead of being full of shadow, the glen is absolutely full of
sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain
or the mountain-tops. The trees are sunshine, and, many of the
golden leaves being freshly fallen, the glen is strewn with
sunshine, amid which winds and gurgles the bright, dark little
brook.

The print in
blood of a naked foot to be traced through the street of a
town.

Sketch of a
personage with the malignity of a witch, and doing the mischief
attributed to one,--but by natural means; breaking off
love-affairs, teaching children vices, ruining men of wealth,
etc.

Ladislaus, King
of Naples, besieging the city of Florence, agreed to show mercy,
provided the inhabitants would deliver to him a certain virgin of
famous beauty, the daughter of a physician of the city. When she
was sent to the king, every one contributing something to adorn
her in the richest manner, her father gave her a perfumed
handkerchief, at that time a universal decoration, richly
wrought. This handkerchief was poisoned with his utmost art, .
. . and they presently died in one another's arms.

Of a bitter
satirist,--of Swift, for instance,--it might be said, that the
person or thing on which his satire fell shrivelled up as if the
Devil had spit on it.

The Fount of
Tears,--a traveller to discover it,--and other similar
localities.

Benvenuto Cellini
saw a Salamander in the household fire. It was shown him by his
father, in childhood.

For the
virtuoso's collection,--the pen with which Faust signed away
his salvation, with a drop of blood dried in it.

An article on
newspaper advertisements,--a country newspaper, methinks, rather
than a city one.

An eating-house,
where all the dishes served out, even to the bread and salt,
shall be poisoned with the adulterations that are said to be
practised. Perhaps Death himself might be the cook.

Personify the
century,--talk of its present middle age, of its youth, and its
adventures and prospects.

An uneducated
countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach, applied
himself to the study of medicine in order to find a cure for this
disease; and he became a profound physician. Thus misfortune,
physical or moral, may be the means of educating and elevating
us.

"Mather's Manduction and
Ministerium,"--or, "Directions for a Candidate"
for the ministry,--with the autographs of four successive
clergymen in it, all of them, at one time or another, residents
of the Old Manse,--Daniel Bliss, 1734; William Emerson, 1770;
Ezra Ripley, 1781; and Samuel Ripley, son of the preceding. The
book, according to a Latin memorandum, was sold to Daniel Bliss
by Daniel Bremer, who, I suppose, was another student of
divinity. Printed at Boston "for Thomas Hancock, and sold
at his shop in Ann St. near the Draw Bridge, 1726." William
Emerson was son-in-law of Daniel Bliss. Ezra Ripley married the
widow of said William Emerson, and Samuel Ripley was their
son.

The spells of
witches have the power of producing meats and viands that have
the appearance of a sumptuous feast, which the Devil furnishes:
But a Divine Providence seldom permits the meat to be good, but
it has generally some bad taste or smell,--mostly wants
salt,--and the feast is often without bread.

An article on
cemeteries, with fantastic ideas of monuments; for instance, a
sundial;--a large, wide carved stone chair, with some such motto
as "Rest and Think," and others, facetious or
serious.

"The
wind-turn," "the lightning-catch," a
child's phrases for weathercock and lightning-rod.

"Where's the man-mountain of these
Liliputs?" cried a little boy, as he looked at a small
engraving of the Greeks getting into the wooden horse.

When the sun
shines brightly on the new snow, we discover ranges of hills,
miles away towards the south, which we have never seen
before.

To have the North
Pole for a fishing-pole, and the Equinoctial Line for a
fishing-line.

If we consider
the lives of the lower animals, weshall see in them a close parallelism to
those of mortals,--toil, struggle, danger, privation, mingled
with glimpses of peace and ease; enmity, affection, a continual
hope of bettering themselves, although their objects lie at less
distance before them than ours can do. Thus, no argument for the
imperfect character of our existence and its delusory promises,
and its apparent injustice, can be drawn in reference to our
immortality, without, in a degree, being applicable to our brute
brethren.

Lenox,
February 12th, 1851.--A walk across the lake with
Una. A heavy rain, some days ago, has melted a good deal of the
snow on the intervening descent between our house and the lake;
but many drifts, depths, and levels yet remain; and there is a
frozen crust, sufficient to bear a man s weight, and very
slippery. Adown the slopes there are tiny rivulets, which exist
only for the winter. Bare, brown spaces of grass here and there,
but still so infrequent as only to diversify the scene a little.
In the woods, rocks emerging, and, where there is a slope
immediately towards the lake, the snow is pretty much gone, and
we see partridge-berries frozen, and outer shells of walnuts, and
chestnut-burrs, heaped or scattered among the roots of the trees.
The walnut-husks mark the place where the boys, after nutting,
sat down to clear the walnuts of their outer shell. The various
species of pine look exceedingly brown just now,--less beautiful
than those trees which shed their leaves. An oak-tree, with
almost all its brown foliage still rustling on it. We clamber
down the bank, and step upon the frozen lake. It was
snow-covered for a considerable time; but the rain overspread it
with asurface of
water, or imperfectly melted snow, which is now hard frozen
again; and the thermometer having been frequently below zero, I
suppose the ice may be four or five feet thick. Frequently there
are great cracks across it, caused, I suppose, by the air
beneath, and giving an idea of greater firmness than if there
were no cracks; round holes, which have been hewn in the marble
pavement by fishermen, and are now frozen over again, looking
darker than the rest of the surface; spaces where the snow was
more imperfectly dissolved than elsewhere; little crackling
spots, where a thin surface of ice, over the real mass, crumples
beneath one's foot; the track of a line of footsteps, most
of them vaguely formed, but some quite perfectly, where a person
passed across the lake while its surface was in a state of slush,
but which are now as hard as adamant, and remind one of the
traces discovered by geologists in rocks that hardened thousands
of ages ago. It seems as if the person passed when the lake was
in an intermediate state between ice and water. In one spot some
pine boughs, which somebody had cut and heaped there for an
unknown purpose. In the centre of the lake, we see the
surrounding hills in a new attitude, this being a basin in the
midst of them. Where they are covered with wood, the aspect is
gray or black; then there are bare slopes of unbroken snow, the
outlines and indentations being much more hardly and firmly
defined than in summer. We went southward across the lake,
directly towards Monument Mountain, which reposes, as I said,
like a headless sphinx. Its prominences, projections, and
roughnesses are very evident; and it does not present a smooth
and placid front, as when the grass is green and the trees in
leaf. At one end, too, we aresensible of precipitous descents, black and
shaggy with the forest that is likely always to grow there; and,
in one streak, a headlong sweep downward of snow. We just set
our feet on the farther shore, and then immediately returned,
facing the northwest-wind, which blew very sharply against
us.

After landing, we
came homeward, tracing up the little brook so far as it lay in
our course. It was considerably swollen, and rushed fleetly on
its course between overhanging banks of snow and ice, from which
depended adamantine icicles. The little waterfalls with which we
had impeded it in the summer and autumn could do no more than
form a large ripple, so much greater was the volume of water. In
some places the crust of frozen snow made a bridge quite over the
brook; so that you only knew it was there by its brawling sound
beneath.

The sunsets of
winter are incomparably splendid, and when the ground is covered
with snow, no brilliancy of tint expressible by words can come
within an infinite distance of the effect. Our southern view at
that time, with the clouds and atmospherical hues, is quite
indescribable and unimaginable; and the various distances of the
hills which lie between us and the remote dome of Taconic are
brought out with an accuracy unattainable in summer. The
transparency of the air at this season has the effect of a
telescope in bringing objects apparently near, while it leaves
the scene all its breadth. The sunset sky, amidst its splendor,
has a softness and delicacy that impart themselves to a white
marble world,

February, 18th.--A walk,
yesterday afternoon, with the children; a bright, and rather cold
day, breezyfrom
the north and westward. There has been a good deal of soaking
rain lately, and it has, in great measure, cleared hills and
plains of snow, only it may be seen lying in spots, and on each
side of stone-walls, in a pretty broad streak. The grass is
brown and withered, and yet, scattered all amongst it, on close
inspection, one finds a greenness;--little shrubs that have kept
green under all the severity of winter, and seem to need no
change to fit them for midsummer. In the woods we see stones
covered with moss that retains likewise a most lively green.
Where the trees are dense, the snow still lies under them. On
the sides of the mountains, some miles off, the black pines and
the white snow among them together produce a gray effect. The
little streams are most interesting objects at this time; some
that have an existence only at this season,--Mississippis of the
moment,--yet glide and tumble along as if they were perennial.
The familiar ones seem strange by their breadth and volume; their
little waterfalls set off by glaciers on a small scale. The sun
has by this time force enough to make sheltered nooks in the
angles of woods, or on banks, warm and comfortable. The lake is
still of adamantine substance, but all round the borders there is
a watery margin, altogether strewed or covered with thin and
broken ice, so that I could not venture on it with the children.
A chickadee was calling in the woods yesterday,--the only small
bird I have taken note of yet; but crows have been cawing in the
woods for a week past, though not in very great numbers.

February
22d.--For the last two or three days there has been a
warm, soaking, southeasterly rain, with a spongy moisture
diffused through theatmosphere. The snow has disappeared, except
in spots which are the ruins of high drifts, and patches far up
on the hill-sides. The mists rest all day long on the brows of
the hills that shut in our valley. The road over which I walk
every day to and from the village is in the worst state of mud
and mire, soft, slippery, nasty to tread upon; while the grass
beside it is scarcely better, being so oozy and so overflowed
with little streams, and sometimes an absolute bog. The rivulets
race along the road, adown the hills; and wherever there is a
permanent brooklet, however generally insignificant, it is now
swollen into importance, and the rumble and tumble of its
waterfalls may be heard a long way off. The general effect of
the day and scenery is black, black, black. The streams are all
as turbid as mud-puddles.

Imitators of
original authors might be compared to plaster casts of marble
statues, or the imitative book to a cast of the original
marble.

March
11th.--After the ground had been completely freed of
snow, there has been a snow-storm for the two days preceding
yesterday, which made the earth all white again. This morning at
sunrise, the thermometer stood at about 18 degrees above zero.
Monument Mountain stands out in great prominence, with its dark
forest-covered sides, and here and there a large, white patch,
indicating tillage or pasture land; but making a generally dark
contrast with the white expanse of the frozen and snow-covered
lake at its base, and the more undulating white of the
surrounding country. Yesterday, under the sunshine of mid-day,
and with many voluminous clouds hanging overit, and a mist of wintry warmth
in the air, it had a kind of visionary aspect, although still it
was brought out in striking relief. But though one could see all
its bulgings, round swells, and precipitous abruptnesses, it
looked as much akin to the clouds as to solid earth and rock
substance. In the early sunshine of the morning, the atmosphere
being very clear, I saw the dome of Taconic with more
distinctness than ever before, the snow-patches, and brown,
uncovered soil on its round head, being fully visible. Generally
it is but a dark blue unvaried mountain-top. All the ruggedness
of the intervening hill-country was likewise effectively brought
out. There seems to be a sort of illuminating quality in new
snow, which it loses after being exposed for a day or two to the
sun and atmosphere.

For a
child's story,--the voyage of a little boat made of a chip,
with a birch-bark sail, down a river.

March
31st.--A walk with the children yesterday forenoon. We
went through the wood, where we found partridge-berries, half
hidden among the dry, fallen leaves; thence down to the brook.
This little brook has not cleansed itself from the disarray of
the past autumn and winter, and is much embarrassed and choked up
with brown leaves, twigs, and bits of branches. It rushes along
merrily and rapidly, gurgling cheerfully, and tumbling over the
impediments of stones with which the children and I made little
waterfalls last year. At many spots, there are small basins or
pools of calmer and smoother depth,--three feet, perhaps, in
diameter, and a foot or two deep,--in which little fish are
already sporting about; allelsewhere is tumble and gurgle and mimic
turbulence. I sat on the withered leaves at the foot of a tree,
while the children played, a little brook being the most
fascinating plaything that a child can have. Una jumped to and
fro across it; Julian stood beside a pool fishing with a stick,
without hook or line, and wondering that he caught nothing. Then
he made new waterfalls with mighty labor, pulling big stones out
of the earth, and flinging them into the current. Then they sent
branches of trees, or the outer shells of walnuts, sailing down
the stream, and watched their passages through the intricacies of
the way,--how they were hurried over in a cascade, hurried
dizzily round in a whirlpool, or brought quite to a stand-still
amongst the collected rubbish. At last Julian tumbled into the
brook, and was wetted through and through, so that we were
obliged to come home; he squelching along all the way, with his
india-rubber shoes full of water.

There are still
patches of snow on the hills; also in the woods, especially on
the northern margins. The lake is not yet what we may call
thawed out, although there is a large space of blue water, and
the ice is separated from the shore everywhere, and is soft,
water-soaked, and crumbly. On favorable slopes and exposures,
the earth begins to look green; and almost anywhere, if one looks
closely, one sees the greenness of the grass, or of little
herbage, amidst the brown. Under the nut-trees are scattered
some of the nuts of last year; the walnuts have lost their
virtue, the chestnuts do not seem to have much taste, but the
butternuts are in no manner deteriorated. The warmth of these
days has a mistiness, and in many respects resembles the Indian
summer, and is not at all provocative of physical exertion.
Nevertheless, the generalimpression is of life, not death. One feels
that a new season has begun.

Wednesday,
April 9th.--There was a great rain yesterday,--wind
from the southeast, and the last visible vestige of snow
disappeared. It was a small patch near the summit of Bald
Mountain, just on the upper verge of a grove of trees. I saw a
slight remnant of it yesterday afternoon, but to-day it is quite
gone. The grass comes up along the roadside and on favorable
exposures, with a sort of green blush. Frogs have been melodious
for a fortnight, and the birds sing pleasantly.

April
20th.--The children found Houstonias more than a week
ago. There have been easterly wind, continual cloudiness, and
occasional rain, for a week. This morning opened with a great
snow-storm from the northeast, one of the most earnest
snow-storms of the year, though rather more moist than in
midwinter. The earth is entirely covered. Now, as the day
advances towards noon, it shows some symptoms of turning to rain.

April
28th.--For a week we have found the trailing arbutus
pretty abundant in the woods. A day or two since, Una found a
few purple violets, and yesterday a dandelion in bloom. The
fragrance of the arbutus is spicy and exquisite.

May
16th.--In our walks now, the children and I find blue,
white, and golden violets, the former, especially, of great size
and richness. Houstonias are abundant, blue-whitening some of
the pastures. Theyare a very sociable little flower, and dwell
close together in communities,--sometimes covering a space no
larger than the palm of the hand, but keeping one another in
cheerful heart and life,--sometimes they occupy a much larger
space. Lobelia, a pink flower, growing in the woods.
Columbines, of a pale red, because they have lacked sun, growing
in rough and rocky places on banks in the copses, precipitating
towards the lake. The leaves of the trees are not yet out, but
are so apparent that the woods are getting a very decided shadow.
Water-weeds on the edge of the lake, of a deep green, with roots
that seem to have nothing to do with earth, but with water only.

May
23d.--I think the face of nature can never look more
beautiful than now, with this so fresh and youthful green,--the
trees not being fully in leaf, yet enough so to give airy shade
to the woods. The sunshine fills them with green light.
Monument Mountain and its brethren are green, and the lightness
of the tint takes away something from their massiveness and
ponderosity, and they respond with livelier effect to the shine
and shade of the sky. Each tree now within sight stands out in
its own individuality of hue. This is a very windy day, and the
light shifts with magical alternation. In a walk to the lake
just now with the children, we found abundance of flowers,--wild
geranium, violets of all families, red columbines, and many
others known and unknown, besides innumerable blossoms of the
wild strawberry, which has been in bloom for the past fortnight.
The Houstonias seem quite to overspread some pastures, when
viewed from a distance. Not merely the flowers, but the various
shrubs which one sees,--seated, for instance, on thedecayed trunk of a
tree,--are well worth looking at, such a variety and such
enjoyment they have of their new growth. Amid these fresh
creations, we see others that have already run their course, and
have done with warmth and sunshine,--the hoary periwigs, I mean,
of dandelions gone to seed.

August
7th.--Fourier states that, in the progress of the world,
the ocean is to lose its saltness, and acquire the taste of a
peculiarly flavored lemonade.

October
13th.--How pleasant it is to see a human countenance
which cannot be insincere,--in reference to baby's smile.

The best of us
being unfit to die, what an inexpressible absurdity to put the
worst to death!

October
2lst.--Going to the village yesterday afternoon, I saw
the face of a beautiful woman, gazing at me from a cloud. It was
the full face, not the bust. It had a sort of mantle on the
head, and a pleasant expression of countenance. The vision
lasted while I took a few steps, and then vanished. I never
before saw nearly so distinct a cloud-picture, or rather
sculpture; for it came out in alto-rilievo on the body of the
cloud.

October
27th.--The ground this morning is white with a thin
covering of snow. The foliage has stillsome variety of hue. The dome of
Taconic looks dark, and seems to have no snow on it, though I
don't understand how that can be. I saw, a moment ago, on
the lake, a very singular spectacle. There is a high
northwest-wind ruffling the lake's surface, and making it
blue, lead-colored, or bright, in stripes or at intervals; but
what I saw was a boiling up of foam, which began at the right
bank of the lake, and passed quite across it; and the mist flew
before it, like the cloud out of a steam-engine. A fierce and
narrow blast of wind must have ploughed the water in a straight
line, from side to side of the lake. As fast as it went on, the
foam subsided behind it, so that it looked somewhat like a
sea-serpent, or other monster, swimming very rapidly.

October
29th.--On a walk to Scott's pond, with Ellery
Channing, we found a wild strawberry in the woods, not quite
ripe, but beginning to redden. For a week or two, the
cider-mills have been grinding apples. Immense heaps of apples
lie piled near them, and the creaking of the press is heard as
the horse treads on. Farmers are repairing cider-barrels; and
the wayside brook is made to pour itself into the bunghole of a
barrel, in order to cleanse it for the new cider.

November
3d.--The face of the country is dreary now in a cloudy
day like the present. The woods on the hill-sides look almost
black, and the cleared spaces a kind of gray brown.

Taconic, this
morning (4th), was a black purple, as dense and distinct as
Monument Mountain itself. I hear the creaking of the
cider-press; the patient horsegoing round and round, perhaps thirsty, to
make the liquor which he never can enjoy.

We left Lenox
Friday morning, November 21, 1851, in a storm of snow and sleet,
and took the cars at Pittsfield, and arrived at West Newton that
evening.

Happiness in this
world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of
pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never
attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may
find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it; but
likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves,
"Here it is!" like the chest of gold that
treasure-seekers find.

West Newton,
April 13th, 1852.--One of the severest snow-storms
of the winter.

April
30th.--Wrote the last page (199th MS.) of "The
Blithedale Romance."

May
1st.--Wrote Preface. Afterwards modified the
conclusion, and lengthened it to 201 pages. First proof-sheets,
May 14.

Concord,
Mass., August 20th.--A piece of land contiguous to
and connected with a handsome estate, to the adornment and good
appearance of which it was essential. But the owner of the strip
of land was at variance with the owner of the estate, so he
always refused to sell it at any price, but let it lie there,
wild and ragged, in front of and near the mansion-house.When he dies, the
owner of the estate, who has rejoiced at the approach of the
event all through his enemy's illness, hopes at last to buy
it; but, to his infinite discomfiture, the enemy enjoined in his
will that his body should be buried in the centre of this strip
of land. All sorts of ugly weeds grow most luxuriantly out of
the grave in poisonous rankness.

The Isles of
Shoals, Monday, August 30th.--Left Concord at a
quarter of nine A.M. Friday, September 3, set sail at about half
past ten to the Isles of Shoals. The passengers were an old
master of a vessel; a young, rather genteel man from Greenland,
N. H.; two Yankees from Hamilton and Danvers; and a country
trader (I should judge) from some inland town of New Hampshire.
The old sea-captain, preparatory to sailing, bought a bunch of
cigars (they cost ten cents), and occasionally puffed one. The
two Yankees had brought guns on board, and
asked questions about the fishing of the Shoals. They were
young men, brothers, the youngest a shopkeeper in Danvers, the
other a farmer, I imagine, at Hamilton, and both specimens of the
least polished kind of Yankee, and therefore proper to those
localities. They were at first full of questions, and greatly
interested in whatever was going forward; but anon the shopkeeper
began to grow, first a little, then very sick, till he lay along
the boat, longing, as he afterwards said, for a little fresh
water to be drowned in. His brother attended him in a very
kindly way, but became sick himself before he reached the end of
the voyage.

The young
Greenlander talked politics, or rather discussed the personal
character of Pierce. The NewHampshire trader said not a word, or hardly
one, all the way. A Portsmouth youth (whom I forgot to mention)
sat in the stern of the boat, looking very white. The skipper of
the boat is a Norwegian, a good-natured fellow, not particularly
intelligent, and speaking in a dialect somewhat like Irish. He
had a man with him, a silent and rather sulky fellow, who, at the
captain's bidding, grimly made himself useful.

The wind not
being favorable, we had to make several tacks before reaching the
islands, where we arrived at about two o'clock. We landed
at Appledore, on which is Laighton's Hotel,--a large
building with a piazza or promenade before it, about an hundred
and twenty feet in length, or more,--yes, it must be more. It is
an edifice with a centre and two wings, the central part upwards
of seventy feet. At one end of the promenade is a covered
veranda, thirty or forty feet square, so situated that the breeze
draws across it from the sea on one side of the island to the sea
on the other, and it is the breeziest and comfortablest place in
the world on a hot day. There are two swings beneath it, and
here one may sit or walk, and enjoy life, while all other mortals
are suffering.

As I entered the
door of the hotel, there met me a short, corpulent, round, and
full-faced man, rather elderly, if not old. He was a little
lame. He addressed me in a hearty, hospitable tone, and, judging
that it must be my landlord, I delivered a letter of introduction
from Pierce. Of course it was fully efficient in obtaining the
best accommodations that were to be had. I found that we were
expected, a man having brought the news of our intention the day
before. Here ensued great inquiries after theGeneral, and wherefore he had not
come. I was looked at with considerable curiosity on my own
account, especially by the ladies, of whom there were several,
agreeable and pretty enough. There were four or five gentlemen,
most of whom had not much that was noteworthy.

After dinner,
which was good and abundant, though somewhat rude in its style, I
was introduced by Mr. Laighton to Mr. Thaxter, his son-in-law,
and Mr. Weiss, a clergyman of New Bedford, who is staying here
for his health. They showed me some of the remarkable features
of the island, such as a deep chasm in the cliffs of the shore,
towards the southwest; also a monument of rude stones, on the
highest point of the island, said to have been erected by Captain
John Smith before the settlement at Plymouth. The tradition is
just as good as truth. Also, some ancient cellars, with thistles
and other weeds growing in them, and old fragmentary bricks
scattered about. The date of these habitations is not known; but
they may well be the remains of the settlement that Cotton Mather
speaks about; or perhaps one of them was the house where Sir
William Pepperell was born, and where he went when he and
somebody else set up a stick, and travelled to seek their
fortunes in the direction in which it fell.

In the evening,
the company at the hotel made up two whist parties, at one of
which I sat down,--my partner being an agreeable young lady from
Portsmouth. We played till I, at least, was quite weary. It had
been the beautifullest of weather all day, very hot on the
mainland, but a delicious climate under our veranda.

Saturday,
September 4th.--Another beautiful day, rather
cooler than the preceding, but not too cool. I can bear this
coolness better than that of the interior. In the forenoon, I
took passage for Star Island, in a boat that crosses daily
whenever there are passengers. My companions were the two
Yankees, who had quite recovered from yesterday's sickness,
and were in the best of spirits and the utmost activity of mind
of which they were capable. Never was there such a string of
questions as they directed to the boatman,--questions that seemed
to have no gist, so far as related to any use that could be made
of the answers. They appear to be very good young men, however,
well-meaning, and with manners not disagreeable, because their
hearts are not amiss. Star Island is less than a mile from
Appledore. It is the most populous island of the group,--has
been, for three or four years, an incorporated township, and
sends a representative to the New Hampshire legislature. The
number of voters is variously represented as from eighteen to
twenty-eight. The inhabitants are all, I presume, fishermen.
Their houses stand in pretty close neighborhood to one another,
scattered about without the slightest regularity or pretence of a
street, there being no wheel-carriages on the island. Some of
the houses are very comfortable two-story dwellings. I saw two
or three, I think, with flowers. There are also one or two trees
on the island. There is a strong odor of fishiness, and the
little cove is full of mackerel-boats, and other small craft for
fishing, in some of which little boys of no growth at all were
paddling about. Nearly in the centre of this insular metropolis
is a two-story house, with a flag-staff in the yard. This is the
hotel.

On the highest
point of Star Island stands the church,--a small, wooden
structure; and, sitting in its shadow, I found a
red-baize-shirted fisherman, who seemed quite willing to
converse. He said that there was a minister here, who was also
the schoolmaster; but that he did not keep school just now,
because his wife was very much out of health. The school-house
stood but a little way from the meeting-house, and near it was
the minister's dwelling; and by and by I had a glimpse of
the good man himself, in his suit of black, which looked in very
decent condition at the distance from which I viewed it. His
clerical air was quite distinguishable, and it was rather curious
to see it, when everybody else wore red-baize shirts and
fishing-boots, and looked of the scaly genus. He did not
approach me, and I saw him no nearer. I soon grew weary of
Gosport, and was glad to reëmbark, although I intend to
revisit the island with Mr. Thaxter, and see more of its
peculiarities and inhabitants. I saw one old witch-looking woman
creeping about with a cane, and stooping down, seemingly to
gather herbs. On mentioning her to Mr. Thaxter, after my
return, he said that it was probably "the bearded
woman." I did not observe her beard; but very likely she may
have had one.

The larger part
of the company at the hotel returned to the mainland to-day.
There remained behind, however, a Mr. T---- from Newburyport,--a
man of natural refinement, and a taste for reading that seems to
point towards the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, and men of that
class. I have had a good deal of talk with him, and at first
doubted whether he might not be a clergyman; but Mr. Thaxter
tells me that he has made his own way in the world,--wasonce a sailor before
the mast, and is now engaged in mercantile pursuits. He looks
like nothing of this kind, being tall and slender, with very
quiet manners, not beautiful, though pleasing from the refinement
that they indicate. He has rather a precise and careful
pronunciation, but yet a natural way of talking.

* * *

In the afternoon
I walked round a portion of the island that I had not previously
visited, and in the evening went with Mr. Titcomb to Mr.
Thaxter's to drink apple-toddy. We found Mrs. Thaxter
sitting in a neat little parlor, very simply furnished, but in
good taste. She is not now, I believe, more than eighteen years
old, very pretty, and with the manners of a lady,--not prim and
precise, but with enough of freedom and case. The books on the
table were "Pre-Raphaelitism," a tract on spiritual
mediums, etc. There were several shelves of books on one side of
the room, and engravings on the walls. Mr. Weiss was there, and
I do not know but he is an inmate of Mr. Thaxter's. By and
by came in Mr. Thaxter's brother, with a young lady whose
position I do not know,--either a sister or the brother's
wife. Anon, too, came in the apple-toddy, a very rich and spicy
compound; after which we had some glees and negro melodies, in
which Mr. Thaxter sang a noble bass, and Mrs. Thaxter sang like
a bird, and Mr. Weiss sang, I suppose, tenor, and the brother
took some other part, and all were very mirthful and jolly. At
about ten o'clock Mr. Titcomb and myself took leave, and
emerging into the open air, out of that room of song, and pretty
youthfulness of woman, and gay young men, there was the sky, and
the three-quarters waning moon, and the old sea moaning all round
about the island.

Sunday,
September 5th.--To-day I have done little or
nothing except to roam along the shore of the island, and to sit
under the piazza, talking with Mr. Laighton or some of his
half-dozen guests; and about an hour before dinner I came up to
my room, and took a brief nap. Since dinner I have been writing
the foregoing journal. I observe that the Fanny Ellsler, our
passenger and mail boat, has arrived from Portsmouth, and now
lies in a little cove, moored to the rocky shore, with a flag
flying at her main-mast. We have been watching her for some
hours, but she stopped to fish, and then went to some other
island, before putting in here. I must go and see what news she
has brought.

"What did you fire at?" asked one of the Yankees
just now of a boy who had been firing a gun.
"Nothing," said the boy. "Did you hit it?"
rejoined the Yankee.

The farmer is of
a much ruder and rougher mould than his brother,--heavier in
frame and mind, and far less cultivated. It was on this account,
probably, that he labored as a farmer, instead of setting up a
shop. When it is warm, as yesterday, he takes off his coat, and,
not minding whether or no his shirt-sleeves be soiled, goes in
this guise to meals or wherever else,--not resuming his coat as
long as he is more comfortable without it. His shoulders have a
stoop, and altogether his air is that of a farmer in repose. His
brother is handsome, and might have quite the aspect of a smart,
comely young man, if well dressed.

This island is
said to be haunted by a spectre called "Old Bab." He
was one of Captain Kidd's men, and was slain for the
protection of the treasure. Mr.Laighton said that, before he built his
house, nothing would have induced the inhabitant of another
island to come to this after nightfall. The ghost especially
haunts the space between the hotel and the cove in front. There
has, in times past, been great search for the treasure.

Mr. Thaxter tells
me that the women on the island are very timid as to venturing on
the sea,--more so than the women of the mainland,--and that they
are easily frightened about their husbands. Very few accidents
happen to the boats or men,--none, I think, since Mr. Thaxter
has been here. They are not an enterprising set of people, never
liking to make long voyages. Sometimes one of them will ship on
a voyage to the West Indies, but generally only on coast-wise
trips, or fishing or mackerel voyages. They have a very strong
local attachment, and return to die. They are now generally
temperate, formerly very much the contrary.

September 5th.--A large part of
the guests took their departure after an early breakfast this
morning, including Mr. Titcomb, Mr. Weiss, the two Yankees, and
Mr. Thaxter,--who, however, went as skipper or supercargo, and
will return with the boat. I have been fishing for cunners off
the rocks, but with intolerably poor success. There is nothing
so dispiriting as poor fishing, and I spend most of the time with
my head on my hands, looking at the sea breaking against the
rocks, shagged around the bases with seaweed. It is a sunny
forenoon, with a cool breeze from the south-west. The mackerel
craft are in the offing. Mr. Laighton says that the Spy (the
boat which went to the mainland this morning) is now on her
return withall
her colors set; and he thinks that Pierce is on board, he having
sent Mr. Thaxter to invite him to come in this boat.

Pierce arrived
before dinner in the Spy, accompanied by Judge Upham and his
brother and their wives, his own wife, Mr. Furness, and three
young ladies. After dinner some of the gentlemen crossed over to
Gosport, where we visited the old graveyard, in which were
monuments to Rev. Mr. Tucke (died 1773, after forty years'
settlement) and to another and later minister of the island.
They were of red freestone, lying horizontally on piles of the
granite fragments, such as are scattered all about. There were
other graves, marked by the rudest shapes of stones at head and
foot. And so many stones protruded from the ground, that it was
wonderful how space and depth enough was found between them to
cover the dead. We went to the house of the town clerk of
Gosport (a drunken fisherman, Joe Caswell by name), and there
found the town records, commencing in 1732, in a beautiful style
of penmanship. They. are imperfect, the township having been
broken up, probably at the time of the Revolution. Caswell,
being very drunk, immediately put in a petition to Pierce to
build a sea-mole for the protection of the navigation of the
island when he should be President. He was dressed in the
ordinary fisherman's style,--red-baize shirt, trousers
tucked into large boots, which, as he had just come ashore, were
wet with salt water.

He led us down to
the shore of the island, towards the east, and showed us Betty
Moody's Hole. This Betty Moody was a woman of the island in
old times. The Indians came off on a depredating excursion, and
she fled from them with a child, and hid herself inthis hole, which is
formed by several great rocks being lodged so as to cover one of
the fissures which are common along these shores. I crept into
the hole, which is somewhat difficult of access, long, low, and
narrow, and might well enough be a hiding-place. The child, or
children, began to cry; and Betty, fearful of discovery, murdered
them to save herself. Joe Caswell did not tell the latter part
of the story, but Mr. Thaxter did.

Not far from the
spot there is a point of rocks extending out farther into the
ocean than the rest of the island. Some four or five years ago
there was a young woman residing at Gosport in the capacity of
school-teacher. She was of a romantic turn, and used to go and
sit on this point of rock to view the waves. One day, when the
wind was high, and the surf raging against the rocks, a great
wave struck her, as she sat on the edge, and seemed to deprive
her of sense; another wave, or the reflex of the same one,
carried her off into the sea, and she was seen no more. This
happened, I think, in 1846.

Passing a rock
near the centre of the island, which rose from the soil about
breast-high, and appeared to have been split asunder, with an
incalculably aged and moss-grown fissure, the surfaces of which,
however, precisely suited each other, Mr. Hatch mentioned that
there was an idea among the people, with regard to rocks thus
split, that they were rent asunder at the time of the
Crucifixion. Judge Upham observed that this superstition was
common in all parts of the country.

Mr. Hatch said
that he was professionally consulted the other day, by a man who
had been digging for buried treasure at Dover Point, up the
PiscataquaRiver;
and, while he and his companions were thus engaged, the owner of
the land came upon them, and compelled Hatch's client to
give him a note for a sum of money. The object was to inquire
whether this note was obligatory. Hatch says that there are a
hundred people now resident in Portsmouth, who, at one time or
another, have dug for treasure. The process is, in the first
place, to find out the site of the treasure by the divining-rod.
A circle is then described with the steel rod about the spot, and
a man walks around within its verge, reading the Bible, to keep
off the evil spirit while his companions dig. If a word is
spoken, the whole business is a failure. Once, the person who
told him the story reached the lid of the chest, so that the
spades plainly scraped upon it, when one of the men spoke, and
the chest immediately moved sideways into the earth. Another
time, when he was reading the Bible within the circle, a creature
like a white horse, but immoderately large, came from a distance
towards the circle, looked at him, and then began to graze about
the spot. He saw the motion of the jaws, but heard no sound of
champing. His companions saw the gigantic horse precisely as he
did, only to them it appeared bay instead of white.

The islanders
stared with great curiosity at Pierce. One pretty young woman
appeared inclined to engross him entirely to herself.

There is a
bowling-alley on the island, at which some of the young fishermen
were rolling.

September 7th.--. . . I have
made no exploration to-day, except a walk with the guests in the
morning, but have lounged about the piazza and veranda. Ithas been a calm,
warm, sunny day, the sea slumbering against the shores, and now
and then breaking into white foam.

The surface of
the island is plentifully overgrown with whortleberry and
bayberry bushes. The sheep cut down the former, so that few
berries are produced; the latter gives a pleasant fragrance when
pressed in the hand. The island is one great ledge of rock, four
hundred acres in extent, with a little soil thrown scantily over
it; but the bare rock everywhere emerging, not only in points,
but still more in flat surfaces. The only trees, I think, are
two that Mr. Laighton has been trying to raise in front of the
hotel, the taller of which looks scarcely so much as ten feet
high. It is now about sunset, and the Fanny, with the mail, is
just arrived at the moorings. So still is it, that the sounds on
board (as of throwing oars into a small boat) are distinctly
heard, though a quarter of a mile off. She has the Stars and
Stripes flying at the main-mast. There appear to be no
passengers.

The only reptile
on the island is a very vivid and beautiful green snake, which is
exceedingly abundant. Yesterday, while catching grasshoppers for
fish-bait, I nearly griped one in my hand; indeed, I rather think
I did gripe it. The snake was as much startled as myself, and,
in its fright, stood an instant on its tail, before it recovered
presence of mind to glide away. These snakes are quite
harmless.

September 8th.--Last evening we
could hear the roaring of the beaches at Hampton and Rye, nine
miles off. The surf likewise swelled against the rocky shores of
the island, though there was little or no wind, and, except for
the swell, the surface wassmooth. The sheep bleated loudly; and all
these tokens, according to Mr. Laighton, foreboded a storm to
windward. This morning, nevertheless, there were no further
signs of it; it is sunny and calm, or only the slightest breeze
from the westward; a haze sleeping along the shore, betokening a
warm day; the surface of the sea streaked with smoothness, and
gentle ruffles of wind. It has been the hottest day that I have
known here, and probably one of the hottest of the season ashore;
and the land is now imperceptible in the haze.

Smith's
monument is about seven feet high, and probably ten or twelve in
diameter at its base. It is a cairn, or mere heap of stones,
thrown together as they came to hand, though with some selection
of large and flat ones towards the base, and with smaller ones
thrown in. At the foundation, there are large rocks, naturally
imbedded in the earth. I see no reason to disbelieve that a part
of this monument may have been erected by Captain Smith, although
subsequent visitors may have added to it. Laighton says it is
known to have stood upwards of a hundred years. It is a work of
considerable labor, and would more likely have been erected by
one who supposed himself the first discoverer of the island than
by anybody afterwards for mere amusement. I observed in some
places, towards the base, that the lichens had grown from one
stone to another; and there is nothing in the appearance of the
monument that controverts the supposition of its antiquity. It
is an irregular circle, somewhat decreasing towards the top. Few
of the stones, except at the base, are bigger than a man could
easily lift,--many of them are not more than a foot across. It
stands towards the southern part of theisland; and all the other islands
are visible from it, Smutty Nose, Star Island, and White
Island,--on which is the light-house,--much of Laighton's
island (the proper name of which is Hog, though latterly called
Appledore), and Duck Island, which looks like a mere reef of
rocks, and about a mile farther into the ocean, easterly of Hog
Island.

Laighton's
Hotel, together with the house in which his son-in-law resides,
which was likewise built by Laighton, and stands about fifty
yards from the hotel, occupies the middle of a shallow valley,
which passes though the island from east to west. Looking from
the veranda, you have the ocean opening towards the east, and the
bay towards Rye Beach and Portsmouth on the west. In the same
storm that overthrew Minot's Light, a year or two ago, a
great wave passed entirely through this valley; and Laighton
describes it, when it came in from the sea, as toppling over to
the height of the cupola of his hotel. It roared and whitened
though, from sea to sea, twenty feet abreast, rolling along huge
rocks in its passage. It passed beneath his veranda, which
stands on posts, and probably filled the valley completely.
Would I had been here to see!

The day has been
exceedingly hot. Since dinner, the Spy has arrived from
Portsmouth, with a party of half a dozen or more men and women
and children, apparently from the interior of New Hampshire. I
am rather sorry to receive these strangers into the quiet life
that we are leading here; for we had grown quite to feel
ourselves at home, and the two young ladies, Mr. Thaxter, his
wife and sister, and myself, met at meal-times like one family.
The young ladies gathered shells, arranged them, laughed gently,
sang,and did
other pretty things in a young-lady-like way. These new-comers
are people of uncouth voices and loud laughter, and behave
themselves as if they were trying to turn their expedition to as
much account as possible in the way of enjoyment.

John's boat,
the regular passenger-boat, is now coming in, and probably brings
the mail.

In the afternoon,
while some of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of
the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries,
I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the
fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and
fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably
followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at
one time, he was almost aground.

Oscar, Mr.
Laighton's son, ran down with a gun, and fired at the shark,
which was then not more than ten yards from the shore. He aimed,
according to his father's directions, just below the
junction of the dorsal fin with the body; but the gun was loaded
only with shot, and seemed to produce no effect. Oscar had
another shot at him afterwards; the shark floundered a little in
the water, but finally got off and disappeared, probably without
very serious damage. He came so near the shore that he might
have been touched with a boat-hook.

September 9th.--Mr. Thaxter
rowed me this morning, in his dory, to White Island, on which is
the lighthouse. There was scarcely a breath of air, and a
perfectly calm sea; an intensely hot sunshine, with a little
haze, so that the horizon was indistinct. Here and there
sail-boats sleeping on the water, or movingalmost imperceptibly over it.
The lighthouse island would be difficult of access in a rough
sea, the shore being so rocky. On landing, we found the keeper
peeling his harvest of onions, which he had gathered prematurely,
because the insects were eating them. His little patch of garden
seemed to be a strange kind of soil, as like marine mud as
anything; but he had a fair crop of marrow squashes, though
injured, as he said, by the last storm; and there were cabbages
and a few turnips. I recollect no other garden vegetables. The
grass grows pretty luxuriantly, and looked very green where there
was any soil; but he kept no cow, nor even a pig nor a hen. His
house stands close by the garden,--a small stone building, with
peaked roof, and whitewashed. The lighthouse stands on a ledge
of rock, with a gulley between, and there is a long covered way,
triangular in shape, connecting his residence with it. We
ascended into the lantern, which is eighty-seven feet high. It
is a revolving light, with several great illuminators of copper
silvered, and colored lamp-glasses. Looking downward, we had the
island displayed as on a chart, with its little bays, its isthmus
of shingly beach connecting two parts of the island, and
overflowed at high tide; its sunken rocks about it, indicated by
the swell, or slightly breaking surf. The keeper of the
light-house was formerly a writing-master. He has a sneaking
kind of look, and does not bear a very high character among his
neighbors. Since he kept the light, he has lost two wives,--the
first a young creature whom he used to leave alone upon this
desolate rock, and the gloom and terror of the situation were
probably the cause of her death. The second wife, experiencing
the same kind of treatment, ran away from him, andreturned to her friends. He
pretends to be religious, but drinks. About a year ago he
attempted to row out alone from Portsmouth. There was a head
wind and head tide, and he would have inevitably drifted out to
sea, if Mr. Thaxter had not saved him.

While we were
standing in his garden-patch, I heard a woman's voice inside
the dwelling, but know not whose it was. A light-house nine
miles from shore would be a delightful place for a new-married
couple to spend their honeymoon, or their whole first year.

On our way back
we landed at another island called Londoner's Rock, or some
such name. It has but little soil. As we approached it, a large
bird flew away. Mr. Thaxter took it to be a gannet; and, while
walking over the island, an owl started up from among the rocks
near us, and flew away, apparently uncertain of its course. It
was a brown owl, but Mr. Thaxter says that there are beautiful
white owls, which spend the winter here, and feed upon rats.
These are very abundant, and live amidst the rocks,--probably
having been brought hither by vessels.

The water to-day
was not so transparent as sometimes, but had a slight haze
diffused though it, somewhat like that of the atmosphere.

The passengers
brought by the Spy, yesterday, still remain with us. They
consist of country traders, a country doctor, and such sorts of
people, rude, shrewd, and simple, and well-behaved enough;
wondering at sharks, and equally at lobsters; sitting down to
table with their coats off; helping themselves out of the dish
with their own forks; taking pudding on the plates off which they
have eaten meat. People at just this stage of manners are more
disagreeable than at any other stage. They are aware of some
decencies,but not
so deeply aware as to make them a matter of conscience. They may
be heard talking of the financial affairs of the expedition,
reckoning what money each has paid. One offers to pay another
three or four cents, which the latter has overpaid.
"It's of no consequence, sir," says his friend,
with a tone of conscious liberality, "that's near
enough." This is a most tremendously hot day.

There is a young
lady staying at the hotel, afflicted with what her friends call
erysipelas, but which is probably scrofula. She seems unable to
walk, or sit up; but every pleasant day, about the middle of the
forenoon, she is dragged out beneath the veranda, on a sofa.
To-day she has been there until late in the decline of the
afternoon. It is a delightful place, where the breezes stir, if
any are in motion. The young girls, her sisters or cousins, and
Mr. Thaxter's sister, sat round her, babbling cheerfully,
and singing; and they were so merry that it did not seem as if
there could be an incurably sick one in the midst of them.

The Spy came
to-day, with more passengers of no particular character. She
still remains off the landing, moored, with her sails in the
wind.

Close by the
veranda, at the end of the hotel, is drawn up a large boat, of
ten or twelve tons, which got injured in some gale, and probably
will remain there for years to decay, and be a picturesque and
characteristic object.

The Spy has been
lying in the broad track of golden light, thrown by the sun, far
down towards the horizon, over the rippling water, her sails
throwing distinct, dark shadows over the brightness. She hasnow got under way,
and set sail on a northwest course for Portsmouth; carrying off,
I believe, all the passengers she brought to-day.

September 10th.--Here is another
beautiful morning, with the sun dimpling in the early sunshine.
Four sail-boats are in sight, motionless on the sea, with the
whiteness of their sails reflected in it. The heat-haze sleeps
along the shore, though not so as quite to hide it, and there is
the promise of another very warm day. As yet, however, the air
is cool and refreshing. Around the island, there is the little
ruffle of a breeze; but where the sail-boats are, a mile or more
off, the sea is perfectly calm. The crickets sing, and I hear
the chirping of birds besides.

At the base of
the light-house yesterday, we saw the wings and feathers of a
decayed little bird, and Mr. Thaxter said they often flew
against the lantern with such force as to kill themselves, and
that large quantities of them might be picked up. How came these
little birds out of their nests at night? Why should they meet
destruction from the radiance that proves the salvation of other
beings?

Mr. Thaxter had
once a man living with him who had seen "Old Bab," the
ghost. He met him between the hotel and the sea, and describes
him as dressed in a sort of frock, and with a very dreadful
countenance.

Two or three
years ago, the crew of a wrecked vessel, a brigantine, wrecked
near Boon Island, landed on Hog Island of a winter night, and
found shelter in the hotel. It was from the eastward. There
were six or seven men, with the mate and captain. It was
midnight when they got ashore. The common sailors, as soon as
they were physically comfortable, seemed to beperfectly at ease. The captain
walked the floor, bemoaning himself for a silver watch which he
had lost; the mate, being the only married man, talked about his
Eunice. They all told their dreams of the preceding night, and
saw in them prognostics of the misfortune.

There is now a
breeze, the blue ruffle of which seems to reach almost across to
the mainland, yet with streaks of calm; and, in one place, the
glassy surface of a lake of calmness, amidst the surrounding
commotion.

The wind, in the
early morning, was from the west, and the aspect of the sky
seemed to promise a warm and sunny day. But all at once, soon
after breakfast, the wind shifted round to the eastward; and
great volumes of fog, almost as dense as cannon-smoke, came
sweeping from the eastern ocean, through the valley, and past the
house. It soon covered the whole sea, and the whole island,
beyond a verge of a few hundred yards. The chilliness was not so
great as accompanies a change of wind on the mainland. We had
been watching a large ship that was slowly making her way between
us and the land towards Portsmouth. This was now hidden. The
breeze is still very moderate; but the boat, moored near the
shore, rides with a considerable motion, as if the sea were
getting up.

Mr. Laighton says
that the artist who adorned Trinity Church, in New York, with
sculpture wanted some real wings from which to imitate the wings
of cherubim. Mr. Thaxter carried him the wings of the white owl
that winters here at the Shoals, together with those of some
other bird; and the artist gave his cherubim the wings of an
owl.

This morning
there have been two boat-loads ofvisitors from Rye. They merely made a flying
call, and took to their boats again,--a disagreeable and
impertinent kind of people.

The Spy arrived
before dinner, with several passengers. After dinner, came the
Fanny, bringing, among other freight, a large basket of delicious
pears to me, together with a note from Mr. B. B. Titcomb. He is
certainly a man of excellent taste and admirable behavior. I
sent a plateful of pears to the room of each guest now in the
hotel, kept a dozen for myself, and gave the balance to Mr.
Laighton.

The two
Portsmouth young ladies returned in the Spy. I had grown
accustomed to their presence, and rather liked them; one of them
being gay and rather noisy, and the other quiet and gentle. As
to new-comers, I feel rather a distaste to them; and so, I find,
does Mr. Laighton,--a rather singular sentiment for a
hotel-keeper to entertain towards his guests. However, he treats
them very hospitably when once within his doors.

The sky is
overcast, and, about the time the Spy and the Fanny sailed, there
were a few drops of rain. The wind, at that time, was strong
enough to raise white-caps to the eastward of the island, and
there was good hope of a storm. Now, however, the wind has
subsided, and the weather-seers know not what to forebode.

September 11th.--The wind
shifted and veered about, towards the close of yesterday, and
later it was almost calm, after blowing gently from the
northwest,--notwithstanding which it rained. There being a
mistiness in the air, we could see the gleam of the light-house
upon the mist above it, although thelight-house itself was hidden by the highest
point of this island, or by our being in a valley. As we sat
under the piazza in the evening, we saw the light from on board
some vessel move slowly through the distant obscurity,--so slowly
that we were only sensible of its progress by forgetting it and
looking again. The plash and murmur of the waves around the
island were soothingly audible. It was not unpleasantly cold,
and Mr. Laighton, Mr. Thaxter, and myself sat under the piazza
till long after dark; the former at a little distance,
occasionally smoking his pipe, and Mr. Thaxter and I talking
about poets and the stage. The latter is an odd subject to be
discussed in this stern and wild scene, which has precisely the
same characteristics now as two hundred years ago. The
mosquitoes were very abundant last night, and they are certainly
hardier race than their inland brethren.

This morning
there is a sullen sky, with scarcely any breeze. The clouds
throw shadows of varied darkness upon the sea. I know not which
way the wind is; but the aspect of things seems to portend a calm
drizzle as much as anything else.

About eleven
o'clock, Mr. Thaxter took me over to Smutty Nose in his
dory. A sloop from the eastward, laden with laths, bark, and
other lumber, and a few barrels of mackerel, filled yesterday,
and was left by her skipper and crew. All the morning we have
seen boats picking up her deck-load, which was scattered over the
sea, and along the shores of the islands. The skipper and his
three men got into Smutty Nose in the boat; and the sloop was
afterwards boarded by the Smutty Noses and brought into that
island. We saw her lying at the pier,--a black, ugly, rotten old
thing, with the water half-way over her decks. The wonderwas, how she swam so
long. The skipper, a man of about thirty-five or forty, in a
blue pilot-cloth overcoat, and a rusty, high-crowned hat jammed
down over his brow, looked very forlorn; while the islanders were
grouped about, indolently enjoying the matter.

I walked with Mr.
Thaxter over the island, and saw first the graves of the
Spaniards. They were wrecked on this island a hundred years ago,
and lie buried in a range about thirty feet in length, to the
number of sixteen, with rough, moss-grown pieces of granite on
each side of this common grave. Near this spot, yet somewhat
removed, so as not to be confounded with it, are other individual
graves, chiefly of the Haley family, who were once possessors of
the island. These have slate gravestones. There is also, within
a small enclosure of rough pine boards, a white marble
gravestone, in memory of a young man named Bekker, son of the
person who now keeps the hotel on Smutty Nose. He was buried,
Mr. Thaxter says, notwithstanding his marble monument, in a rude
pine box, which he himself helped to make.

We walked to the
farthest point of the island, and I have never seen a more dismal
place than it was on this sunless and east-windy day, being the
farthest point out into the melancholy sea which was in no very
agreeable mood, and roared sullenly against the wilderness of
rocks. One mass of rock, more than twelve feet square, was
thrown up out of the sea in a storm, not many years since, and
now lies athwart-wise, never to be moved unless another
omnipotent wave shall give it another toss. On shore, such a
rock would be a landmark for centuries. It is inconceivable how
a sufficient mass of water could bebrought to bear on this ponderous mass; but,
not improbably, all the fragments piled upon one another round
these islands have thus been flung to and fro at one time or
another.

There is
considerable land that would serve tolerably for pasture on
Smutty Nose, and here and there a little enclosure of richer
grass, built round with a strong stone-wall. The same kind of
enclosure is prevalent on Star Island,--each small proprietor
fencing off his little bit of tillage or grass. Wild-flowers are
abundant and various on these islands; the bayberry-bush is
plentiful on Smutty Nose, and makes the hand that crushes it
fragrant.

The hotel is kept
by a Prussian, an old soldier, who fought at the Battle of
Waterloo. We saw him in the barn,--a gray, heavy, round-skulled
old fellow, troubled with deafness. The skipper of the wrecked
sloop had, apparently, just been taking a drop of comfort, but
still seemed downcast. He took passage in a fishing-vessel, the
Wave, of Kittery, for Portsmouth; and I know not why, but there
was something that made me smile in his grim and gloomy look, his
rusty, jammed hat, his rough and grisly beard, and in his mode of
chewing tobacco, with much action of the jaws, getting out the
juice as largely as possible, as men always do when disturbed in
mind. I looked at him earnestly, and was conscious of something
that marked him out from among the careless islanders
around him. Being as much discomposed as it was possible for
him to be, his feelings individualized the man and magnetized the
observer. When he got aboard the fishing-vessel, he seemed not
entirely at his ease, being accustomed to command and work
amongst his own little crew, and now having nothingto do.
Nevertheless, unconsciously perhaps, he lent a hand to whatever
was going on, and yet had a kind of strangeness about him. As
the Wave set sail, we were just starting in our dory, and a young
fellow, an acquaintance of Mr. Thaxter, proposed to take us in
tow; so we were dragged along at her stern very rapidly, and with
a whitening wake, until we came off Hog Island. Then the dory
was cast loose, and Mr. Thaxter rowed ashore against a head
sea.

The day is still
overcast, and the wind is from the eastward; but it does not
increase, and the sun appears occasionally on the point of
shining out. A boat--the Fanny, I suppose, from Portsmouth--has
just come to her moorings in front of the hotel. A sail-boat has
put off from her, with a passenger in the stern. Pray God she
bring me a letter with good news from home; for I begin to feel
as if I had been long enough away.

There is a
bowling-alley on Smutty Nose, at which some of the Star-Islanders
were playing, when we were there. I saw only two dwelling-houses
besides the hotel. Connected with Smutty Nose, by a stone-wall
there is another little bit of island, called Malaga. Both are
the property of Mr. Laighton.

Mr. Laighton says
that the Spanish wreck occurred forty-seven years ago, instead of
a hundred. Some of the dead bodies were found on Malaga, others
on various parts of the next island. One or two had crept to a
stone-wall that traverses Smutty Nose, but were unable to get
over it. One was found among the bushes the next summer. Mr.
Haley had been buried at his own expense.

The skipper of
the wrecked sloop, yesterday, was unwilling to go to Portsmouth
until he was shaved,--his beard being of several days'
growth. It seems to be the impulse of people under misfortune to
put on their best clothes, and attend to the decencies of
life.

The Fanny brought
a passenger,--a thin, stiff, black-haired young man, who enters
his name as Mr. Tufts, from Charlestown. He, and a country
trader, his wife, sister, and two children (all of whom have been
here several days), are now the only guests besides myself.

September 12th.--The night set
in sullen and gloomy, and morning has dawned in pretty much the
same way. The wind, however, seems rising somewhat, and grumbles
past the angle of the house. Perhaps we shall see a storm yet
from the eastward; and, having the whole sweep of the broad
Atlantic between here and Ireland, I do not see why it should not
be fully equal to a storm at sea.

It has been
raining more or less all the forenoon, and now, at twelve
o'clock, blows, as Mr. Laighton says, "half a
gale" from the southeast. Through the opening of our
shallow valley, towards the east, there is the prospect of a
tumbling sea, with hundreds of white-caps chasing one another
over it. In front of the hotel, being to leeward, the water near
the shore is but slightly ruffled; but farther the sea is
agitated, and the surf breaks over Square Rock. All around the
horizon, landward as well as seaward, the view is shut in by a
mist. Sometimes I have a dim sense of the continent beyond, but
no more distinct than the thought of the other world to the
unenlightened soul. The sheep bleat in their desolate pasture.
The wind shakes the house. A loon, seeking, I suppose, somequieter
resting-place than on the troubled waves, was seen swimming just
now in the cove not more than a hundred yards from the hotel.
Judging by the pother which this "half a gale "makes
with the sea, it must have been a terrific time, indeed, when
that great wave rushed and roared across the islands.

Since dinner, I
have been to the eastern shore to look at the sea. It is a wild
spectacle, but still, I suppose, lacks an infinite deal of being
a storm. Outside of this island there is a long and low one (or
two in a line), looking more like a reef of rocks than an island,
and at the distance of a mile or more. There the surf and spray
break gallantly,--white-sheeted forms rising up all at once, and
hovering a moment in the air. Spots which, in calm times, are
not discernible from the rest of the ocean, now are converted
into white, foamy breakers. The swell of the waves against our
shore makes a snowy depth, tinged with green, for many feet back
from the shore. The longer waves
swell, overtop, and rush upon the rocks; and, when they return,
the waters pour back in a cascade. Against the outer points of
Smutty Nose and Star Island, there is a higher surf than here;
because, the wind being from the southeast, these islands receive
it first, and form a partial barrier in respect to this. While I
looked, there was moisture in the air, and occasional spats of
rain. The uneven places in the
rocks were full of the fallen rain.

It is quite
impossible to give an idea of these rocky shores,--how confusedly
they are tossed together, lying in all directions; what solid
ledges, what great fragments thrown out from the rest. Often the
rocks are broken, square and angular, so as to form a kind of
staircase; though, for the most part, such as would require a
giant stride to ascend them.

Sometimes a black
trap-rock runs through the bed of granite; sometimes the sea has
eaten this away, leaving a long, irregular fissure. In some
places, owing to the same cause perhaps, there is a great hollow
place excavated into the ledge, and forming a harbor, into which
the sea flows; and, while there is foam and fury at the entrance,
it is comparatively calm within. Some parts of the crag are as
much as fifty feet of perpendicular height, down which you look
over a bare and smooth descent, at the base of which is a shaggy
margin of seaweed. But it is vain to try to express this
confusion. As much as anything else, it seems as if some of the
massive materials of the world remained superfluous, after the
Creator had finished, and were carelessly thrown down here, where
the millionth part of them emerge from the sea, and in the course
of thousands of years have become partially bestrewn with a
little soil.

The wind has
changed to southwest, and blows pretty freshly. The sun shone
before it set; and the mist, which all day has overhung the land,
now takes the aspect of a cloud,--drawing a thin veil between us
and the shore, and rising above it. In our own atmosphere there
is no fog nor mist.

September 13th.--I spent last
evening, as well as part of the evening before, at Mr.
Thaxter's. It is certainly a romantic incident to find such
a young man on this lonely island; his marriage with the pretty
Miranda is true romance. In our talk we have glanced over many
matters, and, among the rest, that of the stage, to prepare
himself for which was his first motive in coming hither. He
appears quite to have given up any dreams of that kind now. What
he willdo on
returning to the world, as his purpose is, I cannot imagine; but,
no doubt, though all their remaining life, both he and she will
look back to this rocky ledge, with its handful of soil, as to a
Paradise.

Last evening we
(Mr., Mrs., and Miss Thaxter) sat and talked of ghosts and
kindred subjects; and they told me of the appearance of a little
old woman in a striped gown, that had come into that house a few
months ago. She was seen by nobody but an Irish nurse, who spoke
to her, but received no answer. The little woman drew her chair
up towards the fire, and stretched out her feet to warm them. By
and by the nurse, who suspected nothing of her ghostly character,
went to get a pail of water; and, when she came back, the little
woman was not there. It being known precisely how many and what
people were on the island, and that no such little woman was
among them, the fact of her being a ghost is incontestable. I
taught them how to discover the hidden sentiments of letters by
suspending a gold ring over them. Ordinarily, since I have been
here, we have spent the evening under the piazza, where Mr.
Laighton sits to take the air. He seems to avoid the
within-doors whenever he can. So there he sits in the
sea-breezes, when inland people are probably drawing their chairs
to the fire-side; and there I sit with him,--not keeping up a
continual flow of talk, but each speaking as any wisdom happens
to come into his mind.

The wind, this
morning, is from the northwestward, rather brisk, but not very
strong. There is a scattering of clouds about the sky; but the
atmosphere is singularly clear, and we can see several hills of
the interior, the cloud-like White Mountains, and, along the
shore, the long white beaches and the dotteddwellings, with great
distinctness. Many small vessels spread their wings, and go
seaward.

I have been
rambling over the southern part of the island, and looking at the
traces of habitations there. There are several enclosures,--the
largest, perhaps, thirty yards square,--surrounded with a rough
stone-wall of very mossy antiquity, built originally broad and
strong, two or three large stones in width, and piled up
breast-high or more, and taking advantage of the extending ledge
to make it higher. Within this enclosure there is almost a clear
space of soil, which was formerly, no doubt, cultivated as a
garden, but is now close cropt by the sheep and cattle, except
where it produces thistles, or the poisonous weed called mercury,
which seems to love these old walls, and to rot itself in or near
them. These walls are truly venerable, gray, and mossy; and you
see at once that the hands that piled the stones must have been
long ago turned to dust. Close by the enclosure is the hollow of
an old cellar, with rocks tumbled into it, but the layers of
stone at the side still to be traced, and bricks, broken or with
rounded edges, scattered about, and perhaps pieces of lime; and
weeds and grass growing about the whole. Several such sites of
former human homes may be seen there, none of which can possibly
be later than the Revolution, and probably they are as old as the
settlement of the island. The site has Smutty Nose and Star
opposite, with a road (that is, a water-road) between, varying
from half a mile to a mile. Duck Island is also seen on the
left; and, on the right, the shore of the mainland. Behind, the
rising ground intercepts the view. Smith's monument is
visible. I do not see where the inhabitants could have kept
their boats, unless in the chasms worn by the sea into the
rocks.

One of these
chasms has a spring of fresh water in the gravelly base, down to
which the sea has worn out. The chasm has perpendicular, though
irregular, sides, which the waves have chiselled out very square.
Its width varies from ten to twenty feet, widest towards the sea;
and on the shelves, up and down the sides, some soil has been
here and there accumulated, on which grow grass and
wild-flowers,--such as goldenrod, now in bloom, and
raspberry-bushes, the fruit of which I found ripe,--the whole
making large parts of the sides of the chasm green, its verdure
overhanging the strip of sea that dashes and foams into the
hollow. Sea-weed, besides what grows upon and shags the
submerged rocks, is tossed into the harbor, together with stray
pieces of wood, chips, barrel-staves, or (as to-day) an entire
barrel, or whatever else the sea happens to have on hand. The
water rakes to and fro over the pebbles at the bottom of the
chasm, drawing back, and leaving much of it bare, then rushing
up, with more or less of foam and fury, according to the force
and direction of the wind; though, owing to the protection of the
adjacent islands, it can never have a gale blowing right into its
mouth. The spring is situated so far down the chasm, that, at
half or two thirds tide, it is covered by the sea. Twenty
minutes after the retiring of the tide suffices to restore to it
its wonted freshness.

In another chasm,
very much like the one here described, I saw a niche in the rock,
about tall enough for a person of moderate stature to stand
upright. It had a triangular floor and a top, and was just the
place to hold the rudest statue that ever a savage made.

Many of the
ledges on the island have yellow moss or lichens spread on them
in large patches. The moss of those stone walls does really look
very old.

"Old Bab," the ghost, has a ring round his neck, and
is supposed either to have been hung or to have had his throat
cut, but he steadfastly declines telling the mode of his death.
There is a luminous appearance about him as he walks, and his
face is pale and very dreadful.

The Fanny arrived
this forenoon, and sailed again before dinner. She brought, as
passenger, a Mr. Balch, brother to the country trader who has
been spending a few days here. On her return, she has swept the
islands of all the non-residents except myself. The wind being
ahead, and pretty strong, she will have to beat up, and the
voyage will be anything but agreeable. The spray flew before her
bows, and doubtless gave the passengers all a thorough wetting
within the first half-hour.

The view of Star
Island or Gosport from the north is picturesque,--the village, or
group of houses, being gathered pretty closely together in the
centre of the island, with some green about them; and above all
the other edifices, wholly displayed, stands the little stone
church, with its tower and belfry. On the right is White Island,
with the light-house; to the right of that, and a little to the
northward, Londoner's Rock, where, perhaps, of old, some
London ship was wrecked. To the left of Star Island, and nearer
Hog, or Appledore, is Smutty Nose. Pour the blue sea about these
islets, and let the surf whiten and steal up from their points,
and from the reefs about them (which latter whiten for an
instant, and then are lost in the whelming and eddying depths),
the northwest-wind the while raising thousands of white-caps, and
the evening sun shining solemnly over the expanse,--and it is a
stern and lovely scene.

The valleys that
intersect, or partially intersect, the island are a remarkable
feature. They appear to be of the same formation as the fissures
in the rocks, but, as they extend farther from the sea, they
accumulate a little soil along the irregular sides, and so become
green and shagged with bushes, though with the rock everywhere
thrusting itself through. The old people of the isles say that
their fathers could remember when the sea, at high tide, flowed
quite through the valley in which the hotel stands, and that
boats used to pass. Afterwards it was a standing pond; then a
morass, with cat-tail flags growing in it. It has filled up, so
far as it is filled, by the soil being washed down from the
higher ground on each side. The storms, meanwhile, have tossed
up the shingle and paving-stones at each end of the valley, so as
to form a barrier against the passage of any but such mighty
waves as that which thundered through a year or two ago.

The old
inhabitants lived in the centre or towards the south of the
island, and avoided the north and east because the latter were so
much bleaker in winter. They could moor their boats in the road,
between Smutty Nose and Hog, but could not draw them up. Mr.
Laighton found traces of old dwellings in the vicinity of the
hotel, and it is supposed that the principal part of the
population was on this island. I spent the evening at Mr.
Thaxter's, and we drank a glass of his 1820 Scheidam. The
northwest-wind was high at ten o'clock, when I came home,
the tide full, and the murmur of the waves broad and deep.

September 14th.--Another of the
brightest of sunny mornings. The wind is not nearly so high as
last night, but it is apparently still from thenorth-west, and serves to make
the sea look very blue and cold. The atmosphere is so
transparent that objects seem perfectly distinct along the
mainland. To-day I must be in Portsmouth; to-morrow, at home. A
brisk west or northwest-wind, making the sea so blue, gives a
very distinct outline in its junction with the sky.

September 16th.--On Tuesday, the
14th, there was no opportunity to get to the mainland. Yesterday
morning opened with a southeast rain, which continued all day.
The Fanny arrived in the forenoon, with some coal for Mr.
Laighton, and sailed again before dinner, taking two of the maids
of the house; but as it rained pouring, and as I could not, at
any rate, have got home to-night, there would have been no sense
in my going. It began to clear up in the decline of the day; the
sun shot forth some golden arrows a little before his setting and
the sky was perfectly clear when I went to bed, after spending
the evening at Mr. Thaxter's. This morning is clear and
bright; but the wind is northwest, making the sea look blue and
cold, with little breaks of white foam. It is unfavorable for a
trip to the mainland; but doubtless I shall find an opportunity
of getting ashore before night.

The highest part
of Appledore is about eighty feet above the sea. Mr. Laighton
has seen whales off the island,--both on the eastern side and
between it and the mainland; once a great crowd of them, as many
as fifty. They were drawn in by pursuing their food,--a small
fish called herring-bait, which came ashore in such abundance
that Mr. Laighton dipped up basketfuls of them. No attempt was
made to take the whales.

There are vague
traditions of trees on these islands. One of them, Cedar Island,
is said to have been named from the trees that grew on it. The
matter appears improbable, though, Mr. Thaxter says, large
quantities of soil are annually washed into the sea; so that the
islands may have been better clad with earth and its productions
than now.

Mrs. Thaxter
tells me that there are several burial-places on this island; but
nobody has been buried here since the Revolution. Her own
marriage was the first one since that epoch, and her little Karl,
now three months old, the first-born child in all those eighty
years.

This book of the
church records of Gosport is a small folio, well bound in dark
calf, and about an inch thick; the paper very stout, with a
water-mark of an armed man in a sitting posture, holding a spear
. . . over a lion, who brandishes a sword; on alternate pages
the Crown, and beneath it the letters G. R. The motto of the
former device Pro Patria. The book is written in a very legible
hand, probably by the Rev. Mr. Tucke. The ink is not much
faded.

Concord,
March 9, 1853.--Finished, this day, the last story of
"Tanglewood Tales." They were written in the following
order:--

"The Pomegranate Seeds."

"The
Minotaur."

"The Golden Fleece."

"The Dragon's Teeth."

"Circe's Palace."

"The Pygmies."

The Introduction
is yet to be written. Wrote it 13th March. I went to Washington
(my first visit) on 14th April.

Caresses,
expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of
the affections, as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are
wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.

June
9th.--Cleaning the attic to-day, here at the Wayside,
the woman found an immense snake, flat and outrageously fierce,
thrusting out its tongue. Ellen, the cook, killed it. She
called it an adder, but it appears to have been a striped snake.
It seems a fiend, haunting the house. On further inquiry, the
snake is described as plaided with brown and black.

Cupid in these
latter times has probably laid aside his bow and arrows, and uses
fire-arms,--a pistol,--perhaps a revolver.

I burned great
heaps of old letters, and other papers, a little while ago,
preparatory to going to England. Among them were hundreds of
letters. The world has no more such, and now they are all dust
and ashes. What a trustful guardian of secret matters is fire!
What should we do without fire and death?

[Note by online editor: these notebooks were heavily
edited by Sophia Hawthorne
after the author's death. Randall Stewart in 1930 published
a new version, based on the manuscripts at Pierpont Morgan Library,
as a doctoral dissertation at Yale University, and including passages
omitted by Mrs. Hawthorne.
Volume 8 of the Centenary Edition of Nathaniel
Hawthorne's works contains the modern authoritative edition
of these notebooks, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1972.
In 1978 a so-called Lost Notebook was found and published.
We referred to none of these copyrighted editions in preparing
this one, but you should do so if you wish to conduct any
scholarly research.]